


When The Sky Falls Down Around Us

by ch3stpaynes



Category: One Direction (Band), Zayn Malik (Musician)
Genre: 'So', Anal Sex, Author Liam, Bottom Zayn, Cover Designer Zayn, Dirty Talk, Falling In Love, Louis is financially useless, M/M, Nurse Niall, Rocky ending but it all ends well, Top Liam, Two boys trying to find their place in a big city, side larry - Freeform, that awkward moment au, ziam, ziam smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-05-03 03:20:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 41,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5274617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ch3stpaynes/pseuds/ch3stpaynes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zayn doesn't expect to find love this blindly in this city with this boy, but, well-</p><p>He does.</p><p>And that's just as simple as it's said. Or maybe it's a little more complicated, but that's all pretty expected when he has dipshits like Louis Tomlinson and Niall Horan hanging around just ready to throw a new experience in his face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When The Sky Falls Down Around Us

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so most of the timing in this- (yes, I'm going to say the same thing I always do) - is not completely accurate. But I hope the story flows as nicely and as entertaining as it was to write. 
> 
> Enjoy!

It's 2:34 in the morning, dead center, bitter fucking February-

 _and I'm bloody freezing_ , Zayn thinks, digging his fingers deep into the velvet linings of his oversized parka. Wisping in small inhales with a fragile fear of freezing his throat and exposing his lungs to incredible temperatures. The sky is an amber blanket while stars blink like headlights on a busy highway. Trees bare and thin, but terrifying all the same as they creak and away around him. Too much wind to call off Winter and a dead night setting that has Zayn in a middle thought. Some magnificently beautiful scene above his head with not so beautiful castings and Zayn thinks rather lowly of himself during this moment.

This moment where he's just not sure he's done the most he can do for himself or Liam either. He's become this forlorn figure that blends into the murky trees and Seasonal wind of a dense city he's become too familiar with.

It's basically just a  _massive_  mess that adds into the even  _more_   _massive_  mess that is his life.

And it goes, rather bumpily, a lot like this-

 

 

===

 

 

"Call me what you will, Malik."

Louis' voice rings like silver bells over London on Christmas morning. Not exactly as pleasant or heart warming, or what Zayn  _wants_  to hear 11:36 on Saturday morning while he should be tucked away under heaps of blankets with an alarm set for- that's right, two days from now. He should be dreaming about 'what if's' with mountains of pounds and especially no lads anything like Louis included. He should be warm and isolated and just flipped off from the world because right now, this planet seems to hate him more than he hates it-

And that's entirely the source to his problem.

Everything's too bright, finding it's way in through pulled back blinds- Louis, that absolute  _knobhead_. With his coal skinnes pulled too far up his arse and one of his black tanktops because he insists they're still acceptable in October.

(They aren't.)

"But I'm dead on  _brilliant_  and you can't protest because you know damn well I'm right." Louis finishes, clicking his tongue to the roof of his mouth and flipping the loose fringe from his eyes up and away.

He's got this theory, one Zayn denies every time it comes into conversation. The typical " _I went to uni, you flunked out, so I'm right about everything, dipshit._ " That's always followed up with the venomous, unavoidable, " _so did you, a week after me, Tommo._ " Zayn always ends up tossing his way because Louis doesn't have the slightest clue he's just as horrible when it comes to where they could have gone. And he's got this mindset that he owns the world, which is, well, just  _so_  Louis Zayn doesn't bother to correct him on it.

"The only thing you're right about is the police escort m'about to hand your way, lad." Zayn quirks his lip, slipping himself back along leather cushions and pinching his eyes closed with the way comforter feels so cool, yet warm along his skin.

Louis snorts, grinning like mad, crossing his arms over his chest and stalking closer, "right drama queen, you are, dude."

"Couldn't be more far off it, Tommo, now bugger off." Zayn mumbles, low, the morning nipping at his throat and sending his voice into some baritone ramble. It's off putting and no match for Louis' chicken scratch accent.

"M'here to  _save_  you, mate. M'not going anywhere." Louis shrugs, popping his lips out and bulging his eyes like cherries in the right season. He's kicking his feet up along Zayn's opposed couch, not a chair because he doesn't believe in cliche living room sets.

(Nor does he believe in being saved from inevitable grieving when Louis is the metaphorical life preserver. Because if Zayn recalls, the last time Louis claimed to be his savior, he ended up with an almost DUI and a scolding from some bimbo in a downtown cafe.)

"And you're saving me from what exactly?" Zayn wonders, swallowing the scratchy cat-like feeling carved into his tongue.

"Rattlesnake depression." Louis blurts suddenly and Zayn nearly fucking spits.

"S'like, awful. Strikes ya' when you least expect it. Niall says it's most common among recently left helpless romantics like yourself. Y'know. Nurse life n'd all."

"Niall's n'idiot." Zayn shakes his head, unbelieving, "n'd so are you, dude."

Louis sticks his bottom lip out, sappily. sliding himself down the arm of Zayn's leather sofa, sinking further down into the cushions until he squabbles to keep himself from bashing into petrified floors.

"Ya' look like the one who needs the the help, bro. Hammered this early?" Zayn wonders, more comically, chewing away at his cheek to swallow down the giggle scraping up his tongue.

"Piss off, Z." Louis waves his hand out, lifting himself upright and spreading himself, widely, along the crinkled cushions, "I could turn myself around and not help out me best mate when he's  _clearly_  mourning like some business sod without his 7 am coffee."

Zayn sneers, sitting back to straighten his spine out, knocking his br heel along the base of his coffee table. Thin glass with too many chips from Niall and his  _man_  mug. Some bullshit refillable cup he packs with him everywhere he goes. Some reminder that he's carrying Irish blood because- " _London's fuckin' boring, Zaynie_." According to every confrontation, well, ever.

Zayn retorts, cringing his lip. "M'not mourning, I'm just-"

"Missing her?" Louis offers, cluelessly and Zayn-

 _Fuck_.

He should have known that was coming, but somehow he's gotten so good at forgetting that he can't seem to prepare himself for anything anymore. And he won't change that quality for any surprise attack because he likes the numb feeling in his veins too much to give up. And no one on earth can tell him it's unhealthy because he's  _so_  convinced it's better than just coping.

It has to be.

(Because he refuses to think about her at 11:44 in the morning while Louis pulls faces at him and swears love will find him again.)

"Fuck. M'sorry, bro. Know you're sensitive n'd shit, like." Louis stutters, like a prat. Folding his hands together like some holy icon and bowing his head down at scuffed, beat vans. Rips in all of the most important places, but he'll never toss them. Because Louis is stubborn like that. This absolute 'too good for the world' moron that Zayn's been in love with since they moved out here. Some rain puddle of dreams they both warped themselves into chasing and now they're just here.

Simple existing.

With Niall, too, of course, he's just doing better.

(And Zayn can't say he never expected that.)

"No bother," Zayn mumbles, finally, shifting and pocketing his left hand to palm around his mobile, sunken into his sweats pocket. He's grinding his teeth out of habit, crinkling his nose and eyebrows whenever Louis breaks eye contact because he knows he's an arse for just being here let alone bringing up-

Well,  _that_.

Louis stays quiet for a while. Perhaps the longest he's been since he rapped, obnoxiously loud on Zayn's flat door and whisper shouted a load of panicked curse words through the mail slot because his neighbors don't take to kindly to his company- (or maybe it's just Louis, but either way he's a paranoid knobhead.)

And it gets sort of deafening after a bit, nothing but blurred out sirens that muffle through cemented shut windows. No fresh air because that's what the outside is for and Zayn's set with keeping the world  _out_ and his sanity  _in._ Or maybe it's the other way around, but either way, he prefers quiet. Simmered down honks late at night when traffic builds up too strong and Zayn's unaware because he's got his headphones to swallow his ears and after hour remixes to settle his blood and tuck him in. And, yeah, it's pretty fucking lonely, but he doesn't mind it all entirely because it's the type of freedom he's never properly had and that feels-

Nice? Good spirited like affable, long distance rings with Doniya, Waliyha or Safaa.

This prodigious little dosage of  _home_  and  _independence_  he balances so well atop his shoulders.

Louis clears his throat, suddenly, wiping his thumb along the bump of his nose and curving his nails up under his eyes. They aren't baggy, like most work days where he's nicking small sips of Zayn's coffee, the skin there is more bright, healthy looking. It sort of throws off Louis' whole expression and he looks younger. Like the same 18 year old, trouble making kid he was five years prior and Zayn nudges his smirk into his shoulder at the wash of memories.

"Knock it already, Tommo." Zayn insists, urgingly, popping his chin up and blinking away the fuzz stuck to his lashes, batting them harshly along his cheeks and squinting when he manages to catch more dust.

"Well, she gave you the ' _so_ ' right? Like-"

Zayn nods, chewing along his lip like some sort of fleshy sucker candy.

His mind wanders and he thinks the whole thing sort of ridiculous. The ' _so_ ' point in seemingly every one of his relations with lads or birds. Like ' _where's this supposed to be going?_ ' or the classical ones that stick to his skin like, ' _so, I've been thinking about this, and-'_  that never exactly ends well. Not with Zayn at least. But Louis is a paranoid prat and Zayn's convinced the wording that comes along with break ups is entirely random.

 _No_ , he's certain.

"She did." Zayn answers point blank, this memory like a drill spiraling into his temple. That abhorrent moment of confrontation not so long ago. The one that began with a crooked smile and a suitcase or two lined up at the door a Monday no later than 8 pm. Glossed over, sparkling lips and eyes like ' _I'm so sorry, babe, but..._ ' as she left him behind in a dark hallway with flickering lights and not enough emotion to physically crush himself with.

But he won't delve too far into that scene in his head because he's better off without her.

Has been for a while now.

"S'brutal, innit? Like that deciding moment? Although props to you for ditching her at the opposite end. The sovereign part, you world ruler you." Louis knocks his head back with a slight rumbling cackle.

"Ditched  _me_ , Tommo," Zayn corrects, gloomily, huffing into his shoulder, pressing his nose into an inky skull printed into his skin and retracting his breath when he speaks again.

"Look, whatever. I know you're bein' a sap about it, but I've got your solution. Suffer free, man." Louis says, speedily, ruffling his hair around and leaning forward, jittery. "Or maybe s'more of a proposition I won't stop nagging you over until you accept."

"You're  _relentless_ ," Zayn shakes his head, pressing his feet hard into splintering wood and pushing himself up, "most persistent son of a-"

"Watch your mouth, Zayno. M'simply trying to help you get over it." Louis stands with him, throwing his hands over his head dramatically.

Zayn grins, comically snickering as he sways toward his kitchen. The one that's way too small with grey cabinets, even darker grey linings and shades the color of tombstones back in the graveyard Zayn's Daadi was buried last Fall. Countertops cluttered with sheets of sketches and cover scribbles. Rubbish he's planning on throwing out as soon as he's got time for a rinse and perhaps a fag or two puffing out his lips while Louis learns the definition of silence.

Although Zayn finds that highly unlikely because Louis Tomlinson is difficult in every way, shape or form.

And Zayn loves him just as much as he detests his being.

"And how do you reckon t' do that?" Zayn asks, knocking his hips along his fridge handle, grunting and slipping his fingers up along the handle, tugging weakly.

"S'pretty obvious, innit? We take you out, get ya staggering with a few ginger lemon vodkas and maybe a couple spiked crans, shove you into some lucky bird or blokes arms n'd just-"

"Bloody hell," Zayn murmurs, blinking hazily into the foggy icebox. Picking the tangerine fluorescence of orange juice out of his mix and pressing his fingertips to either side, spinning slowly like a reversed ballerina and kicking his heel up against the refrigerator door. "You're fuckin' mental."

"Not mental, Zayn, m'bri-"

"Brilliantly  _stupid,_ I get it." Zayn hums, slipping a devilish smile along his lips. "And don't tell me by  _we_ you mean-"

It's this rap, or more of a pounding that has Zayn's heart dropping and his eyes flaring open, wide open, not sleep deprived and slitted shut, but-

Fucking  _Louis_.

"Open up yer door, Zaynster, 've got some bottles that could use s'me icing."

Fucking  _Niall_.

Zayn presses his thumb along the plastic handle of orange juice, pressing his lips into a thin line and blinking long and hard, setting the jug down on his counter before he presses himself back, sinking his fingers into either side of his nose and just rubbing away the build up of irritation that seems to collect there like a tumor. A blood devouring, red cell slaying, parasite of a tumor Zayn doesn't want to have to deal with this early. He knows what he needs and that's tranquility, paid leave and maybe some chilled beers on his own while he sketches out pitch after pitch for every title and novel summary Caroline sends his way.

Not  _this_.

"Said he missed ya', like a proper puppy. Was I supposed to tell him to fuck right off?" Louis wonders, timidly, tucking his hands away into his pockets and rocking on his heels.

"Might as well have-"

"Right, well I've got the key n'd if you're tossing it, cover up or summat." Niall booms from the other side of Zayn's front door and he sinks into regret, slowly.

"You gave him a  _what_?" Louis perks up at sudden mention and Zayn's clenching his jaw so hard-

It's exactly when he's about to sock Louis in the nose that Niall swings himself around the corner, twisting his head around like he's ready to snap it in motion while letting his tongue hang loosely between his teeth. He looks like a pup in a new surrounding and it softens Zayn's nerves slightly. Niall Horan with his lightning, pikachu blonde hair and eyes like Zayn's versace cologne bottle his mum sent him last Christmas. Tinted blue and just like frost on November door handles.

"S'cause m'his favorite, right man?" Niall wonders, crinkling his eyes at Zayn when he smiles, setting a six pack down roughly on Zayn's counter and he grimaces at his feet with the chiming clink to follow.

"Fuck right off, Horan. You know damn well I'm the one who devised the plan." Louis presses himself back along Zayn's opposite counter, swinging his ar out to clip the carton of orange juice before winking at Zayn and popping the cap.

"Prick," Zayn mumbles, too quietly for himself to hear but Louis flashes him one of the most plastic apologetic smiles he's ever seen before pressing the rim to his lips.

"All you did was frost the cake." Louis finishes once he swishes the tangy liquid down his pipes, licking over his lips and nodding at Niall.

"Frostings the most important part, Tomlinson. What's got you so damn bitter, couldn't be that bird who I caught snogging some posh suited lad on the corner of ashwood?" Niall wonders, pressing his lips together, dragging his tongue back and Louis' expression drops like a weight in water.

He looks, well, genuinely bothered and something's seriously off if Niall Horan's struck Louis Tomlinson in the heart.

Because Louis is fearless and rebellious and he doesn't do commitment.

"Shove off it." He mumbles, low and moody and Zayn feels a spike of sympathy deep in his blood only he knows it's only momentarily because if he knows Louis he'll be just as bitter about whatever it is in order to cover up his own grief.

He'll bite at the inside of his cheek, shove his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his wrecked heels and sputter something ridiculously harsh like-

"Her boyfriend's an oblivious  _prick_  who deserves nothing but razors  in his mornin' tarts."

Yeah, exactly.

Niall cackles, something like thunder in early Spring. The sign of slightly less shit whether in London, and Zayn rubs at his temples, cornering himself between two absolute idiots. No clue on personal space, but he can't help the nagging, microscopic section of his thoughts that urge them to stay and help him stay off this constant track of remembering and what he could have should have done when he had the chance.

"Simmer down on t'e dramatics, Tommo. Christ, you'd think you're in love with the bird." Niall shrugs, squinting his eyes and snorting at Louis when he doesn't' respond, blinking down at the tip of his blackout vans and-

"No  _way_ ," Zayn concludes, suddenly, swallowing the twist of a brutal sneer along his tongue.

"Louis Tomlinson's in lo-"

"Fuck off, Horan." Louis snaps, flicking his hair Niall's way, "you too, Malik. M'serious."

Zayn raises his hands in defense, shrugging away the humour and trying not to look at Niall because- that's going to be a catastrophic shit fit.

And embarrassment to Louis while he's wound up is like a lit match in a propane tank.

Not pleasant.

Yet Zayn finds respect somewhere deep in his veins for this skimpy lad with the doodled up arms and ocean flicker eyes. This major brat he's had glued to his hip since primary.

"I think s'time we forget me, yeah? S'always about me. And right now, it's all about Zaynster and his sappy romance novel of a love life." Louis sputters, only he sounds so fucking witty and smart when he does Zayn doesn't know whether to take offense or just roll with it.

So he rolls with it, because that's always easier.

"Right, because m'the one shagging a bird who's already under another blokes arm-"

"Are you quite  _fucking_  finished, Zayn?" Louis snaps, narrowing his eyes and he's venomously  _feisty_  now.

Zayn stays quiet, tracing the tiles along the floor with his eyes because he can see Niall pressing his hands to his stomach to keep from busting out into giddy giggles.

"Anyway, as I was saying before you two decided to be  _assholes_. Niall and I have come to revive you, bro. That's why we're mucking about in your toss-off and sleep time for. T' help you." Louis says, emphasized like that's  _entirely_  what this is about.

"More like you just want an excuse for a-"

"Lads night? Nah, dude. But now that you mention it..."

"Christ," Niall huffs, licking at his lips to file his grin away.

"Would ya' look at this, Blondie. Zayn's reelin' the words right outta' me mouth!" Louis nods along, kicking his heel out at Niall lightly and raising his eyebrows up and down like a half-arsed twit.

"So you'll join us, then?" Niall ignores Louis, keeping his sight locked and loaded on Zayn who's pressed against the fridge, throat parched and craving the gush of orange juice to flick along his taste buds.

(But Louis couldn't give a shit less about proper house guest expectations because he's nearly drained the damn thing.)

"Ya' need this, man. You're absolutely gutted over  _everything_." Louis quirks his lip, this serious tone winding it's way into his tone and it throws off his whole crinkly eyed, loud mouth persona out the window of Zayn's 7th story flat.

"He's right, what's her name gave you the ' _so_ ' dude. And that's when you know it's over with." Niall nods, like it's so bloody obvious how this abrupt ending has come into Zayn's life, crossing his arms over his chest and knocking his head back roughly along his shoulders with a drawn out, ghastly crack of his bones.

Zayn furrows his brow, leaning his head against the fridge door and scratching at the side of his belly. Tracing up the thick, dark trail of springy hairs that lead below the waistline of his old joggers.

The one's he saves for days off and-

-the never ending harassment chronicles of two of his best mates.)

"Fuck the so." Zayn grumbles, irritated at the world and well, what else is new.

Because either way he's stuck in this tarr of a feeling he won't call regret or sadness. It's somewhere in the middle and it's far too complicated for early morning thoughts.

So he'll call it aggravation and fuck the rest of his way out of it while Louis pesters him like-

"I'll take that as a yes, then?"

 

 

===

 

 

The Loft is crowded, no-  _chock-full cramped_.

It's later in the night. The ceiling's too low, stringy lights hung along the walls and scratchy paintings that frown along wiry holds. Boxy frames of previous owners and fishing boats just off Canvey Island. The sort of dingy's that remind Zayn of fishing with his own baba. Him and his Raven black hair that's so  _Yaser Malik_  Zayn gawks at it all because- well, he couldn't possibly have Waliyha dyeing it for him or Doniya styling, but- there's a smell now like mint wax candles and enough bitter beer to drown even Niall.

Although that still seems pretty impossible.

Especially when Niall's planted across from him with a pint in his very own mug and eyes wide like bullseyes.

"Reckon this'll be down t' hatch before midnight?" Niall says, comically, chewing along his cheek and bubbling his lips when he slurps along the rim like a uni student at some out of control rager. Like some unsanitary drunk only he's a fucking nurse with certificates and masters up his office wall and that's just-

Well,  _mental_.

"S'in four minutes, mate. No shit it'll be gone." Louis sniffles, flicking his thumb up the side of his corona bottle. Condensation like tear drops as they slide along the chilled glass.

"Speaking of being gone-" Louis drags his eyes up the other side of the bar. Blinking big and nipping along his lip. Probably a source like big

"Absolute savage," Zayn shakes out, thumbing his fingers along his thigh and crinkling his nose.

"Not a savage, bro. Just treating myself. I deserve it, yeah? Me girlfriend cheated on me according to Niall." He snorts, offended.

"You knew, Tommo. Don't play that asshole." Niall gurgles flizzy beer in his throat.

"Don't criticize me, Niall. I'd watch your mouth considering this is on me tab and I'm-"

"A generous alcoholic?" Zayn offers, grinning like an idiot.

"You too, smart ass. And maybe I did know, but I was still cheated on." Louis raises his hands in defense, like he's the victim in this above average dramatic mess and Zayn sneers like a demon. He can't fucking help it, really.

"Cheated  _with_ ," he corrects under hooded eyes and he shoves a giggle into his shoulder when Louis shoves him, roughly.

"Asshole."

Zayn sinks into his cushion, thinning his lips out and, blowing air up along the tip of his nose. He's barely sipped at his flattened cherry cola and he doesn't remember the last time he's been out without-

No. Not here.

"Anyway, you may be a legendary prick with your snarky comments in my book, but we're here f'r  _you_." Louis nudges Zayn's side, quirking his mouth, "well, like,  _mostly_  you. Drinks are cheap n'd peeps are hot."

Zayn shakes his head, lightly, following Louis' eyes and the way they jerk to follow somewhere beyond their isolated booth in the far back. Some strapping handsome lad bouncing towards them with dense hair like a lion's mane. Wavy, dense curls and large hands that barely fit in the pockets of his skinnies, eyes like witches skin and splintering pine leaves and there's a design like bubbles or something incredibly daft looking like shrimp or lobster printed to the front and back of his shirt. He's got this smug expression like ' _yeah, asshole, I'm wearing Gucci satin to a downtown pub. What're you going to say about it?_ '

Harry.

He's smiling like he's just scored big on some casino game and Zayn quickly chases that thought out of his head because they aren't supposed to associate Harry Styles with a gambling problem. It's highly disrespectful and " _accurate, yikes lads_ " according to Louis, so Zayn leaves it alone and focuses on his ridiculous style instead. Picking laughs at the white leather belt or high heel cowboy boots he's surely got strapped on below this line of vision.

He doesn't, to Zayn's disappointment, shoveling himself into their booth on Niall's side and puffing his cheeks out before he speaks. "Lads."

"You're late," Louis shakes his head, instantly, unimpressed and he looks, well, soft? Not entirely fuming as he would be.  _Should be_.

He's irritated, but he doesn't look menacing when he's looking at Harry and Zayn finds it concerning, like,  _what the fuck is wrong with you and how much ecstasy did you actually take?_

But he keeps it all in his head until he can't care to remember.

"M'not going to race all over London to help you get a good shag in. S'not me night job." Harry snorts, circling his eyes around the table, nodding his head at Zayn and nudging Niall.

"What's the craic, H?" Niall snaps the subject first, nodding his head and snaking his arm above the cushion to rest behind his shoulders.

Harry flinches, barley, but Zayn catches it and he also catches the way Louis' thigh twitches from beside him and-

"Same old. Breaking me arse out for this one." Harry indicates to Louis, smirking like a three year old awarded most helpful in some miniature classroom in the suburbs.

"You love it, Styles." Louis brushes off, crinkling his eyes and peeling his lips up.

"Yeah, m'sure Haz is real keen on helping you get a good lay in, Tommo. What's in it f'r him, anyway?" Niall wonders, scrunching his eyebrows and tracing the rim of his mug.

"That's a brilliant question, Niall," Harry grins, devilishly, turning his head to look at Louis. "What  _is_  in it for me, Louis?"

It's this surge of humour that runs through Zayn's blood and he just waits for it to drain out his toes because he knows how fumingly horny Louis probably is and how this whole night was based around himself-  _as usual_ \- and how, yeah, he's an asshole to Harry, but there's got to be more of a reason behind it. And Zayn probably has that answer lurking somewhere shallow in his head, he just chooses not to figure it out because he'd rather guzzle gasoline than get in between the kings of sex and all that is painfully pleasurable.

(And its either something obvious like Louis is just this much of a sex feign, or he's in love with Harry which is-  _entirely possible_ , but Zayn leaves his perspective open-

-for now.)

"You're me  _wingman_ , mate. S'a no pay job n'd we help eachother out." Louis shrugs, lazily, bringing his bottle to his lips and swallowing down a gulp size or two of rich alcohol.

"Jus' like I'm helping Zayno get  _laaaaiiiid_." He drags out, proudly, nodding his head and raising his eyebrows dopily at Harry whose eyes jet right over to Zayn like he's kidding.

"Why does Zaynster need a half witted shag when he's got-"

Zayn's heart twinges, flickering emotions he doesn't want to feel because he's sick of them, signaling ridiculous masses of upsetting moods to his brain. He's here to forget all of that no matter how long ago it was or how much it stung when he was cut out from a life he put so much into. Just that typical plot he always falls victim to.

And his face must say it all, sappily enough. The way he knows his bottom lip is poked out just a little bit whenever he's confronted with any event in his life. The discomfort that comes along with breakups and departures and why he's sitting in a bar with 2 and a half of his best mates, a few ints of beer and a mission set in his head, (or rather Louis') that's so unpleasant and uncanny he finds it sort of sickening.

But he's not here for him, he just has to keep reminding himself that Louis is a needy bastard and Niall's been flying solo since he was 21 and studying at Queen Mary's with sticky dorm sheets and some bird with red hair named Delila.

Harry's here for Louis and Zayn is here because he's got nothing better to do with himself besides worry about his next big cover topic or whether or not he's going to have a missed call or message flickering on his mobile screen when he can access a proper 4G connection.

But slowly, he's starting to fade out of that hunger for an apology.

"I see. S'rough, dude. M'sorry." Harry mumbles out slowly, under his breath and it's so fucking uncomfortable, this deja vu sequence that replays in Zayn's head.

He's sick of talking about it. That's all.

"It's all okay, perfectly  _ace_ , lads, because we're all here together, right? It's us to the end. Fuck commitment and swooning romanticism, because Malik's living proof that they all crash n'd burn-" Louis snaps his neck to the side, apologetically whispering into Zayn's ear a quick, "no offense, bro, but s'true," before knocking along the table wood.

"So we're all landing a good shag tonight, yeah? Dealio?" Louis wonders, snapping his eyes between Niall then Zayn and finally Harry but Zayn has this gut feeling Louis is going to say something blatantly insufferable like-

"Except wing man, mop head, here."

Yeah, that.

"Arse," Harry mutters, teasingly and Zayn blinks down at his thumbs, blowing out light puffs of air out his nostrils.

He can feel Louis nudging him seconds, or maybe minutes later when Niall's shuffling to find the loo and Harry's flicking his thumbs along his mobile screen, carelessly on another planet.

This light whisper that curves sneakily along the shell of his ear. "Just take a chance, Zayn."

 

 

====

 

 

He isn't exactly wasted.

There's a rush of sizzling warmth creeping it's way through his blood. Not fast and furious like he feels after too many tequila's or gin nips. There's something steady that balances him out. It very well could be the water he's ordered around ten minutes ago. Half gone and keeping him afloat because it's stuffy. Stuffy even though it's close to one in the morning and The Loft has begun to empty out. More space and less people yet the music is still loud and the lights are still hazy and Zayn's still sober enough that he can make out faint lyrics to some warped Chris Brown tune. Slow and thrown off, thumping through the speakers.

His vision is fogged because he's had a few coronas. Not enough to nail him into the ground, but he doesn't wish that upon himself tonight. Not when the moon's full and his heart's close empty. Not when his fingertips are dripping charcoal dark regrets and his skin is boiled over with withering wishes. Not when Niall has disappeared and Louis is-

Not here,  _thankfully_. But somewhere.

The bar isn't crowded when Zayn wanders up to it, knocking his elbows along the top and observing the sporadic groups of people that make their way across the first level. Stairs to his left that creak under heavy footsteps but he focuses on the hum of an unknown melody and-

"M'set, mate. Thanks."

It's this typical, suburban accent and if Zayn could guess, the average city bloke who wandered inward from the countryside. Up North in Bedford or maybe even the viney streets of Cambridge. This thick baritone rumble he can't make out too clearly, but it's close and he squints to focus his hearing.

"But what if I like the drink? Like, I really,  _really_  like it? Then what happens?"

It's there again, more urging of a tone this time and Zayn can pin it- almost. Spinning slowly on his heels to match the face with-

_Oh._

He's, well, something.

He's this bloke with one of those typical middle twenties quiff. Oak brown, gelled hair and skin like golden sand under this exact light. He's got soft cheeks and light stubble that winds up along his jaw, scruffy and dark scratched in along his chin. he's strapped into this skin tight henley that's loose along his wrists and fucking stretched along his biceps. The ones that are bulging and bringing attention to Zayn downstairs but-

Shit,  _this_  bloke is fit.

He's five feet away and he's just-

Chatting with himself? No, couldn't be when-

Zayn spots the other lad then, this obvious, cock thirsty prat with eyes the color of Harry's. Only the green is more periwinkle than pine and they're mesmerizing and untrustworthy and Zayn frowns, curiously. Observing from closely far away.

"I'd love to hear what you think happens then." The other boy smiles, dazed and unexpectant. He just looks like a proper asshole and Zayn stands his ground, furrowing his eyebrows and stuffing his hands into his pockets to ignore the chilly draft.

"What's going to happen, is that we're going to end up playing beer pong back in the other room with your two flat mates until eventually, I'm too smashed to remember your name and you're too slick to care, and we're both stumbling off the tube back to your place in, Wembley, I'm assuming?" The boy with coffee eyes and cotton pink lips snorts, clearly amused and buzzed off of the idiot to his left.

Not  _Zayn._  Zayn's the idiot to his  _right_  gawking like a horny teenager with a life promise strapped to his wedding finger.

"You know about me roommates?"

"Yeah, and then I'll have to listen to your two best mates have sex with Addison or Jessie or whatever the girl's name is they've reeled in for the night. A lot like me, until we both fall asleep." The boy shakes his head, tracing his index along the rim of his corona bottle.

"Then a year later were playing the same beer pong, with the same beer in the same bar with your same mates only now you feel like we need to get married because you think it's what I want." He adds, lifts the cup to his lips and sloshes iced water inside of his cheeks.

And Zayn picks this moment of insane chance by sliding his way closer, blindly wandering his way into a cloud of ginger cologne and a smell he's momentarily (or maybe permanently) in love with, sniffling at the rich scent and buckling his knees to re-position himself, steadily, beside this lad who's striking and just fucking strapping by definition with his combed up wave quiff and Zayn blames the alcohol buzzing mellowly through his veins.

And he spits the words out because he's been repeating the same phrase in his head thinking it might be witty enough to impress, but-

"And then in the Summer seasons you'll travel up to Stamford to meet his parents, wondering the whole ride if they'll think you're handsome enough."

It's like- it's like a film the way Zayn's noticed, dully by the idiot with long drawn back hair and eyes like an ocean storm, but this boy next to him, or rather the one Zayn's  _next to_  is raising his brow, confused, bewildered, but he doesn't stutter for long before-

"Brilliant enough."

Zayn doesn't smirk. Or maybe,  _fuck_ , he does. He  _can't help it_  when poisonous courage is pumping through his blood and he's got a knack for blokes with scratchy chins and lips so plump he could just-

Not bite, but, he would given the chance and circumstance and-

Zayn plays along, shaking that thought, lazily drawing his eyes up. "Wondering the whole ride if they're going to think you're brilliant enough."

"Because no one really is and then we're going to be stuck drinking shitty merlot." The boy adds, sipping at his straw.

"At a shitty cocktail party." Zayn lists, words coming easy now. Ready to roll off of his tongue in between every comment.

"And have shitty conversations." the boy sighs, bowing his head.

"With shitty people." Zayn continues, shrugging.

"And his  _beyond_  shitty mum," the lad drags out, slumping his shoulders.

"Who, let's face it," Zayn's voice lingers.

"doesn't think you're brilliant enough."

Oak eyes blur and focus in on Zayn from close, it's direct eye contact like ' _I don't know who you are in the least, but perhaps you'll stay?_ ' And Zayn accepts that imaginary pry and keeps his lips still with his palms trapped inside his jacket. Hidden so they won't tremble in dim sight.

"Let's face it, doesn't think you're handsome enough." The boy adds, keeping contact, his eyes crinkling and the creases on either side there deepening.

"Because no one is," Zayn quirks his lip up, something a lot like a grin smoothing across his lips.

"And no one ever will be." The boy presses his elbows to the bar top, lazy pupils as they draw along stringy lights, avoiding contact. A giggle bubbling past his lips and the side view of it has Zayn's cock fattening a little bit in his trousers when a pink tongue slips out to rid of the dryness on the boy's lips.

"You're both fucking mental,  _my god_." The lad beside them from previous confrontation shakes his head, twisting around with disbelief and irritation built up and spit out messily as he loosens himself from sticky leather seating and wanders away.

There's this manically awkward bubble that floats its way inside Zayn's stomach, shifting around his bones and creaking up his spine. He doesn't entirely hate it, though, and well, he doesn't exactly hate this night as much as he thought he did.

Not since-

His eyes divert and, well,  _fuck_.

It's just as compelling as that first glance. This sharp glare of reflective milky brown eyes with sharpie dots for pupils and scrunched up eyebrows and holy shit if this bloke isn't assaulting him with his eyes. Or maybe it's the other way around, with Zayn staring helplessly because he can't exactly look away until his lips twitch and the boy grins, thinning curling his fingers around his empty water.

"M'Liam." He nods his head, eyeing Zayn.

"Zayn." Zayn hums, content because it's just one of those harmless introductions with cocktails topped of in cherry brims and translucent, glowing liquid.

So Zayn takes a chance.

"Real refresher, then?"

 

 

===

 

 

It isn't harmless.

(Not yet.)

But That isn't the first thought that zips through his head the following morning.

The sky is dull, luminescent clouds that float along the drawn back curtains. Not enough time for his eyes to adjust as he wriggles, bucking his hips up and flipping himself to the side. He can feel his hair matted to his forehead, dense, inky black strands fading out into silver hairs curling against his nose. He can barley see, for both reasons, swallowing hard and blinking long when he licks along his chapped lips.

His vision is hazy, fogged over when he's able to actually see. And he-

Wait a fucking minute-

He sits up, bolt upright, groaning lightly at the pressure he feels in his temples, like a sink and weigh and he reaches a hand up, keeping one behind himself to stay hunched.

He's still fully dressed, sticky skinnies that will probably leave marks on his legs but that isn't the most conflict he's going to have to deal with today because  _he doesn't know where he is_.

And it isn't him, really. He's not that guy with the sleep around record and the high heart rate from too many Viagra pills.

(No, no- that's Louis.)

He swings his legs over the mattress, knocking his heel into his-

His doc martins are lined up impeccably with the bed frame. Waiting for him like-

He doesn't question it, he doesn't  _want_ to. He just slips them on, not bothering with the laces and tugging his jacket beside the bedside table, over his shoulders. Sucking in small sharp breaths to avoid a panic attack and slipping past the bedroom door.

The hallway is long, not so much narrow, but Zayn can peak around the corners and he's light on his feet, looking like an absolute idiot while he wielded his way-

It's so fucking sudden he almost chokes on his tongue.

The den, some flickering tv with smart living commercials and a list of friends episodes stacked off to the side.

But it isn't that, really. It's more of the limp arm hanging loosely off of the sofa that catches Zayn's heart in his throat and he stops dead if he isn't already, examining the twist of tattoos. A spread eagle with leaves and smoky swirls and it would make a decent starter to a sleeve if the poser buried underneath the covers wasn't such a Betty Crocker/home design guru.

And Zayn doesn't waist time on any of those thoughts, really, because he's in search for a way out, out, out. Now.

Which isn't much of a journey, honestly- to find the front door, and he does, eyeing his distance and twisting the knob quietly, slipping out and away because he's not going to be caught hungover in some modern day flat with sea foam kitchen counters and cloud grey drapes.

And he's gone, before he can even process how.

 

 

===

 

 

"Malik, you  _absolute_  devil."

The morning is scratchy along Zayn's tongue. He's got the bitter taste of iced espresso stained to his teeth and everything seems so slow, warped out. His eyes are creaking open and stuttering between every blink while Louis yips, energetically and just alive from two feet away. Zayn frowns at him, tucking his lip under his teeth and huffing, slightly. His light stubble is fizzed in the wrong direction and he scratches along his chin to help reset his brain.

It doesn't help much.

Not when the waiting room is overflowing with ansty authors and not enough editors to go around.

And Zayn blinks, decompressing when he feels his desk's legs shake, ricocheting off of his legs and-

"Would you  _get down_." Zayn scoffs, squinting his eyes, but Louis ignores him. Entirely.

How sweet.

"You better have a damn good excuse, mate. I had t' take that shit shuttle of a tube home." Louis rolls his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest and eyeing Zayn up and down like he's expecting some grand explanation.

"Just leave it," Zayn sniffles, sinking into his chair and resting his eyes, sleepily.

"Y'know, I'll letcha' off the hook because you're heartbroken n'd all, but next time you leave me in a bar alone with Niall fucking Horan-" Louis' expression stiffens, his edgy smirk deflates and he looks like he's low-key pissed. Kicking his heels roughly along Zayn's desk and swallowing down all of the curse words Zayn's sure he wants to holler because there's nothing more aggravating than Niall Horan, gushing about checking weight of small children and choking them with popsicle sticks, the sick bastard.

"I get it, Tommo." Zayn warns, sheepishly, thumbing his fingertips along the plastic surface of his desk.

"Yeah, yeah. M'just wondering who you actually ended up shagging." Louis sneers, lifting his eyebrows dopily and flipping loose shaggy fringe out of his eyes.

Zayn sighs, defeated and irritated and every other word that describes early mornings with unnecessary harassment from Louis Tomlinson, prick of the year.

"We didn't shag, like, don't think I even know what-"

"Hm?" Louis hums, smirking snarkily and Zayn- fuck, he wants to hit him for the way his eyes are barely slits and the way his chin is tilted up like he's some sort of source to Zayn's future holy matrimony and, well, he isn't.

"Nothing, just-" Zayn mutters, fragile, sweeping a hand up through his jagged hair. Silver and poky and he may have just dumped the rest of his styling gel atop his head after his rinse once he got home early this morning. Too fuzzed over in frigid confusion rather than the pinch of weight he felt in his temples-  _still feels_ , regrettably enough.

"Leave it? Whatever you say, bro." Louis shrugs, easily, like he's- "but m'sure whatever you did with whoever you did it with, I did way filthier with-"

"Bloody hell." Zayn groans, agonizingly, slumping forward.

"Please, Zayno. Don't give me that uninterested persona. You're just upset that m' a quality-"

"Nuisance?"

Her voice is soft, this hint of sas that nips at her words and oozes into her question (or rather her accurate opinion) like wet cement or watery, mint leaf toothpaste. An instant cloud of Dior Miss Dior that whisks its way through the cubicle space and chokes Zayn in one of the most pleasant ways. Her 'too brilliant for you' or rather just her 'Louis Tomlinson you're a good for nothing knobhead' sway to her walk that emphasizes the click of her heels and the drag of her eyes along the nipped up carpet.

Caroline in all of her agonizingly stunning glory.

"I mean, if I were you, Tomlinson. I wouldn't be gushing over the fact." She grins, comically, throwing a pinch at Zayn's shoulder when she passes him to reach her desk, net and squared away with a set of pens and a clean, snow white keyboard.

"Watch it, Care Bear." Louis lifts a brow, nodding his head like he's going to actually protest but Caroline shoves a giggle into her shoulder as she sets her handbag down, leather on leather as it glues itself to her chair.

"I'd watch yourself, darling. You're bound to screw up someday-" She hums, unphased and brittle with her words because she's sipping at her cold tea and letting her early morning mood simmer along the thrill of roasting Louis Tomlinson.

"I'd just like to help you now while I can say I tried," she finishes, thinning her lips over in sticky gloss and Zayn crinkles his nose to suffocate a laugh.

"Reckon you'll ever get tired of shitting on my parade?" Louis wonders, kicking his heel back along thin walls.

Caroline turns to him, shaking her head and pressing her nails into the back of Zayn's chair. Sharp like talons, but bright and pink like rose nylons.

"Zayn Malik, I can successfully announce I feel utterly awful for you." She mutters, low, but Louis still catches on, dully.

"Hey, I wouldn't praise Maliko when he's sleepin' with hookers after too many vodka sodas." Louis knocks his head back and-

" _Zayn Javadd_ -" Caroline gasps, and Zayn could probably smack a few yelps out of Louis until he's satisfied for a month or so.

"He wasn't a hooker, you arse." Zayn narrows his eyes, scoffing and feeding off of the relief in Caroline's eyes when she hears him properly. "He was, like, just a mucked up situation."

"Bollocks, Z." Louis cups his lips, cackling when Zayn sighs, sinking lower and he just wants to disappear, shrink down and fall in between the screws of this feeble furniture.

"Someone's just a bit bitter because he robbed a hooker." Louis adds, sniffling and Zayn gapes at him, blushing.

"I didn't rob- he wasn't even a hooker just some bloke-"

"You didn't pay, bro, you pretty much robbed him." Louis nods, convinced, Pickering his lips.

"Enough! You're both mental, just short of psychotic, honestly." Caroline, huffs, crossing her arms over her chest as she taps her heel, impatiently. "Now will you collect yourself if possible and get to your client before they end up doodling nonsense on the cover themselves?"

"Yes, mum." Louis groans, low, slipping himself off Zayn's desk, thankfully enough and planting his feet into the carpet.

Zayn does the same, lining his feet up along the carpet and biting along a growl because he hates the way his toes barely fit in compressed leather.

"Speaking of that poor women, she hasn't disowned you yet, has she?" Caroline wonders, cracking the office door open and clutching her clipboard to her chest.

"Funny." Louis scoffs, rolling his eyes and Zayn kicks the door back, lightly to slip past, trailing behind the two of them, groggy steps that makes him feel like he's tripping out on some laced drug.

And somehow he thinks he'd find that more enjoyable than accessing hand in hand accuracy and proposition skills this early. The sun's hung low in the sky and London's barely blinked yet.

"Simply curious and- oh,  _Zayn_." Caroline chimes, pursing her lips at him as she swings around, stopping short- "you've got to quit scuffing those, darling. I can hear you over this one."

"Sorry," he mumbles, stuffing his hands into his pockets and nudging ahead while Caroline stops short at the meeting room door, spinning around to face them, clipboard stuck to her chest.

"His name is Liam. He's young, he's new, and he's most likely going to accept whatever proposal you've scraped up on the spot." Caroline whispers, nodding her head at Zayn and then Louis and then both of them one last time just to make sure they've got it.

Zayn does. Louis is itching at his forearm like a kid with chickenpox and Caroline just rolls her eyes because frankly, she's given up on him.

So she spins on her heel, shoving at the glass doors and directing them both in

Louis shuffled in ahead and-

"I just think you have to believe in possibility."

Zayn's blood runs frigid, he's- wait.  _No_. The lad sat at the side of the stretching table is dressed in a serious manner like his gran's just passed. Styled hair, whiffed up neatly unlike the first time and this couldn't be the same baritone rumble, the same cliché accent and just the same bloke from-

"Oh, welcome to London, darling," Caroline chirps from the other side of the room, teleporting and interrupting the publishers sat ahead of the table.

His head spins. The boy with the light stubble, shaved now, and eyes like cinnamon as they scan the room and he looks, well, dealt by surprised when he meets eyes with Zayn.

"Fuck." Zayn mumbles, shouldering into Louis and nudging him forward.

"Watch it, asshole." Louis mutters, not-so quietly, clicking his feet along the floor and sitting himself at the front of the table. The opposite side while Zayn's left with direct and improbably eye contact with-

(L.J. Payne, author of the book he's been chosen to design. How perfect.)

Caroline begins her introduction, abruptly. Obsessed with being on time and going on about how she's excited for the ideas that lay ahead.

Zayn's panicking, like- he's  _really_  fucking panicking and he doesn't know why. Or maybe it's because he's being stared at by all angles and he feels trapped in this cramped pitch room with not enough oxygen molecules floating about for him to suck in. It's hot and Louis and squinting at him like he already _fucking knows_. But Zayn has a feeling he's suffocating because he spots the inky eagle from where he's sitting, etched into the boy's tanned skin and it all comes together, quite roughly in his head.

Liam isn't a hooker, he's worse.

(An actual bloke with a more socially accepted career and he's smart and fit and Zayn's royally fucked himself.)

"Would you mind giving a slight explanation of the cover you two've been working on?" Caroline wonders, bashing through his thought, cheerfully and she really has  _no_  clue.

"Yes. I would love and explanation." Liam nods his head, smiling devilishly and- shit Zayn's gone pale, he swears.

"Um, we've got this lad." Zayn stutters, shamefully, indicating at the cover board, blown up onto the wall, "n'd like-"

Fuck, he  _can't_ do this.

"I think what me partners tryin' to get at is; the cover is what it is." Louis finishes for him and it's a shit explanation to say the least, but Zayn's still so grateful he's awarded three more seconds to get it together.

(Although somehow he thinks that won't be enough.)

"It looks to me as if the mans trying to run away." Liam hums, tracing his eyes up the diagram in the corner of the meeting room and back to Zayn who gulps, fucking embarrassed if he's ever been more in his life and this boy's looking at him like he's just strangled a kitten.

"It couldn't be because he's afraid is it? Of being a proper gentleman around other company?" Liam wonders and Zayn can catch Caroline with beaded eyes across the room. "Or is he just too much of an asshole to stick around and utter a proper thank you?"

 

 

===

 

 

He's leaned up along the railing by the stairway after Zayn stutters into a "loo run." Calling it a bloody emergency like his liver has decided to shut down and it might as well have because this is  _so_  brutally awkward. And worse. Yeah.

Liam. Crossed arms over the metal bar outside and across the hall while he licks at his lips and blinks down at the first floor.

"I thought like- I didn't know what happened n'd me mate said you were showing hooker signs so-" Zayn mumbles, coming up close by.

"You thought you'd get out of there real quick? I mean what the hell, mate?" Liam wonders, irritated before Zayn can finish his shit excuse.

"And  _hooker signs?_ " Liam questions, squinting his eyebrows and crinkling his brow with a shake of his head when Zayn nods. "You were hammered and I helped you out."

He's got mistrusted eyes and Zayn feels  _so_  guilty when he probably shouldn't.

Zayn rubs at the nape of his neck, flustered, "And I thought we like, er-"

"You were knocked out by the time I pulled the covers back, man." Liam reveals, tucking his hands away into his slack pockets and keeping his lips pinned. "N'd m'not big into deceptive intimacy."

Zayn kicks his heel, allowing the wash of relief he won't try to stop that simmers in his blood and he sniffles, bowing his head.

"It was a shitty thing t' do, m'sorry." Zayn apologizes, voice soft and sincere. Or so he really thinks because Liam's features soften and he looks understanding at least.

"Let me make it up to you, yeah?" Zayn adds, rocking back on his heels, "take ya' out f'r putting up with me and the hooker situation."

And he hopes that he hasn't just crossed a line. Like this bloke is just some too sweet to handle lad with not enough of a bad soul to say no to a date.

A date with another lad and that's-

It's  _different_. Not odd, because Zayn's never new to something like drunk kissing blokes, or chatting up a posh dressed lad in a bar, but-

"Make it up to me?" Liam repeats, biting at a smirk that curls along his lip, "you want to make it up to me?"

Zayn pauses before he nods, sure of himself. He doesn't mind. He owes it to Liam and himself, really.

"Well," Liam swallows, pulling at his sleeves, effortlessly. "I s'pose."

"Yeah?" Zayn wonders, confirmation clarification fiddled into his tone.

"Yeah." Liam clarifies, "let me see your mobile."

Zayn stutters, raising a brow, but he shuffles around in his pocket, retrieving thin glass and slipping it into Liam's palm.

He taps out a few speedy digits before handing it back, thinning his lips out and turning to exit. Pressing his Steve Maddens into the carpet and keeping his eyes straight ahead.

Zayn blinks down at the screen shimmering dimly under these lights and catching reflective blares while he squints to read the message scribed neatly into his notes-

' _You're an asshole_.'

 

 

===

 

 

"Hooker signs. That's what did it, dude." Louis swears, shrugging while Niall shakes his head, shamefully at the sidewalk.

The air is nippy and Zayn curls his fingers into his front pockets, crossing either side of his Woolrich. He's not bothered to zip up because he's mostly stubborn and maybe he sort of likes the refreshing gasp of wind the city huffs whenever the three of them pass an open alley.

"Agreed, even actual hookers hate being called out for hooker signs." Niall nods along, shouldering his cackle and Zayn gives him a look.

"Shove off it,  _he_  put the idea in my head." Zayn defends, eyeing Louis and the way his breath mimics cigarette smoke curling along the air.

His lungs itch and he squeezes his fists a little deeper. For the warmth and not Lucky Strikes. He swears.

"Wrongo, Maliko. All I c'd do is put the idea out there. Your head is for what  _you_  think." Louis fires back, clearly ready with that one because he's the innocent lad from Doncaster who couldn't possibly be up to no good. Oh, no.

"Doesn't matter anymore." Zayn sniffles, nothing out of emotion, just because it's cold and, well, maybe he's a little upset at the fact he'll never actually know Liam.

"Whad'ye mean?" Niall wonders, shouldering closer.

"You fancy him, yeah? Don't see what t' problem is if he tucked ye in at night n'd all." Niall adds, snarkily and Zayn frowns, childishly.

"Reckon he even kissed ya' forehead?" Louis asks, snorting.

"Idiots," Zayn groans, blushing up red.

"Just curious. About  _that_  n'd why you don't have yourself a roster." Louis shrugs, like Zayn's familiar with this sort of out-of-the blue drugged out definition's Louis seems to come up with every night at three in the morning.

He has no clue, seriously.

"A what?" Zayn wonders, something harsh binding along his tone and he ignores Louis' snarl.

" _No shit_ , Malik, you oblivious dog, you." Louis shakes his head, nuzzling his nose into the silky plaid pattern of his scarf. Tucked around his neck like a noose and Zayn swallows down that opportunity to serve him right.

"It's a group of birds, or lads in your case that you continue to get off with, n'd like- it keeps ye from sending out the wrong message." Niall explains, shakily, clutching his coffee between his fingers, cringing with every step because the top isn't screwed on right and it's just messy.

"Which is?" Zayn asks, keeping his eyes ahead.

"That you actually want to date one of them," Louis nods off, grinning at Zayn which he catches barely out of the corner of his eye.

"Just think of it as a physical and mental way-"

"Mostly physical." Niall cuts in, correcting.

" _Mostly physical_  rejuvenation of your soul. " Louis finishes, blinking at Zayn under blurry eyelashes.

"Or a spa." Niall adds, helpfully, like he's doing an ace job at defining, but Zayn's-

"A cock spa, bro." Louis says, comically, feeding off of the way Niall snorts into his elbow.

"Absolute twats." Zayn mutters, pursing his lips and keeping his stride in order to leave everything he detests in a conversation behind him.

 

 

===

 

 

The night is like a Van Gogh masterpiece. Stars blinding like headlights that twinkle and bounce along the faded clouds that hang low over Zayn's head. The oxygen isn't oxygen and he inhales the nicotine instead of rejecting it. It's calming his nerves and maybe he likes the way it feels sinking into his blood. The way the railing of his balcony feels icy cold along his palms. This steady, tranquil feeling that's  _so_  foreign but he lives for moments like these where he isn't plagued with work or worry or just plain and simple hair tugging stress.

It's contentment in one of the most satisfactory ways.

However he's been thumbing away at social media platforms for hours on end because he can't get groomed quiffs and plush lips like candy out of his head.

And fuck, he won't admit it to Louis or to Niall or even Caroline because she's too keen on his love interest, but he's sort of-

Obsessed.

No, that isn't the word. It's more like infatuated, or charmed or even just plainly fascinated.

He's just scrolling, harmlessly, tapping on photos that seem to line up across his Instagram page in a reckless, blinding pattern.

Liam's page.

The account Zayn spent, honestly, three minutes searching for and the other 117 minutes just looking through. There's a countless amount of in-bed selfies that Zayn grins at and a few sunset pictures faded out like tinted charcoal on canvases that remind Zayn about when he used to believe he was an artist.

(Still does, but well, modern day.)

There's the ridiculous captions, too. The ones with shirtless pictures- (and yeah, Zayn palms himself a little, giving himself a rough squeeze every time he catches a glimpse of tanned skin and wet lips, but-) and sayings, unprofessional and trendy and nothing like an uptight author like-

' _Just woke up ... Stillllll cute though ahaa_ '

Or Zayn's favorite; ' _everyone says I'm a geek anyway so what's the hell..._ '

(Plus the picture above that one is just fucking- perfect in this light. Liam with superman curls and reading mixed with black and white sunglasses and-)

Zayn cringes at himself, nearly allowing his mobile to plummet down story after story from his balcony rail.

He's completley lost it.

And he's sure he's double lost it when he's thumbing at the links tagged in Liam's bio. The contact me for business ones that Zayn presses on because he might as well and it's all a blur because he's tapping out some email he's not sure he knows if he can send, tongue twisted between his teeth, but it's something persistent along the lines of-

 _'I'm sorry. You never seemed like a hooker in the first place and I'd like to take you out before you forget about me._ '

 

 

===

 

 

It's somewhere between the following Tuesday and the groggy alarm clock blaring in Zayn's eardrums Wednesday at 7 pm where he receives an email in return, one with the title ' _you're mental, but..._ ' And he knows with just a smear of confidence inked to his fingertips, he's come around.

 

 

===

 

 

The London sky is grey and threatening to spill over thousands of buildings. Thick thatched roofs and a street full of shuffling city goers with high umbrellas and slippery heels. The tube station is to far from this corner but Zayn's not worried as he blows along his tea, sniffling and brushing his chin into his shoulder, tracing the rim of his porcelain and lifting his eyes to meet-

Well,  _Liam's_.

He's sitting comfortably, contentedness on his face with wet lips as he licks them over, tasting the rich tea left over to dry. His cheeks are stained red from the cold and his eyes are glassy without the sun to brighten his shade of mahogany brown.

"Didn't think you'd answer." Zayn admits, quietly, letting his spine curl from his posture. It's unhealthy, but comfortable and he doesn't want to seem stiff. Not here.

"What kind of lad would I be if I didn't eventually find it funny." Liam snorts, leaning forward and resting his hands in his lap.

"You'd probably be every other Brit in the country." Zayn smirks, chewing at the inside of his cheek.

"But M'not." Liam says.

"Right."

"So you, er, design covers?" Liam wonders, suddenly, pinching the stem of his tea cup.

"Book covers." Zayn corrects, quirking his lip. "I just sort of developed my own style, mostly."

Liam nods, crinkling his brow and tracing the way the shrubs shake just past thin glass to his left.

"Louis is just some of the inspiration. Wild imagination." He adds, explaining.

"Like hooker signs?" Liam offers and Zayn chews his tongue to stop from cackling.

"Yeah, ace example."

There's quiet. Giggling baristas every time they swing by the table with blushy cheeks and too many check-up's for water or a " _refill on the tea, love?_ "

Darkening skies and coffee beans that consume Zayn's every hint of smell. The only overpowering substance is himself and maybe a little bit of Liam who coats himself in ginger cider cologne that shouldn't be so toxically pleasing but it is. Settling in Zayn's senses and he thinks he won't mind choking on it every now and then because it's a reminder of Liam.

And fuck, that would probably sound even more stupid out loud, but-

"And you're good at it, like. I've seen some example that, uh, Caroline? She showed me n'd-" Liam stutters, scratching at his neck and Zayn spots a coffee stained birthmark just under his jaw.

But he twists his eyes away and settles into Liam's voice. He prefers the gravely pitch of it.

"They're like, they're  _cool_." Liam finishes, swallowing down more compliments, Zayn's sure, because he's that sort of lad and it isn't pushy, or aggravating. It's genuine and he likes that.

"Think so?" Zayn wonders, pressing his tongue to the roof of his mouth and scratching at tight denim stuck to his thighs like cement.

"'Course, mate." Liam swears, "natural, I reckon."

Zayn nods, memories back to primary, scribbling inside the lines with a tongue slid in between his teeth and concentration drilled into his brain.

"Something like that." He says, finally. Lingering his eyes up the tucking of Liam's scarf. Long and fuzzy with dots of dust and displaced strands. A light brown jacket that fits him well and he looks so proper while Zayn's contently snug in his tight fitting jeans and cloud grey Henley. Buttons down revealing red lips and angel wings tatted into his skin. And he doesn't button them up whenever it gets too chilly because Liam fancies his ink, (he can fucking tell with those eyes) and he likes the glint of desire in his eye whenever he trails too low on Zayn's chest.

Like he  _shouldn't_  be looking but he can't help himself and Zayn's just letting it happen because he's guilty in the same instance, mostly along Liam's arms where he's nearly covered his right with birds and patterns and Zayn chews at his lip when he catches the skull print.

"Got 'em 'cause I could? Dunno, like, I was persuaded by one of me mates and I don't hate it, right?" Liam explains because this has basically just become some examining session and Zayn can't say he wouldn't mind if it kept going, really.

"Plus the artist was fit and he seemed to know what he was doing, so-"

Zayn scratches up along his arm, tracing his notorious 'chillen' Louis talked him into the same sort of way a few years back during a summer he wishes he could forget.

"And the ribbons?" Zayn wonders, quietly, curiosity nipping at his brain and he waits, patiently for Liam to gulp down a sip of his simmering tea.

His cheeks flush Crimson and Zayn thinks he's asked the wrong question when-"s'daft."

He sinks back, frowning and lifting his eyebrows. "Doubt it."

"No, like, s'really daft and I, um." Liam stutters, rolling his lips and batting his lashes.

"It's for when m'married, like, properly in love." Liam explains, suddenly before Zayn has to chase him into it, "or just,  _fuck_ , I know it's stupid, right? But it's kinda personal and all that."

Zayn stays quiet, pressing his fingertips into his tart plate, empty with crumbs, admiring silently.

"I think it's cool, mate." Zayn says, sincere. "Like a ring, only, forever. Can't lose it. It's smart."

"Think so?" Liam chews along his lower, tugging it under and Zayn-

(He won't shift around too much because Liam's lips are so plush and full and he can only imagine how they would feel pressed into the curve of his-)

"Yeah, yeah." Zayn mutters, softy, voice like a whisper or something quieter while Liam smiles into his next sip.

He's got crinkle dents in his skin and Zayn traces them with his own eyes, blinking in between each line and pressing his teeth together to keep from smirking. This horrible habit he seems to develop every time he fancies a check-out.

"But besides ridiculous tattoo's, I'm into the writing thing." He says, flattening his mouth into a thin line. Or as thin as he can get because those fucking lips-

"I could tell. Where'd you study?" Zayn wonders.

"Kingston." Liam answers, proudly, although he tries not to show it but Zayn nods anyway, impressed.

"That's big, man." Zayn says, his nose crinkling along with his eyes.

"Sort of, like. I studied music engineering for a little bit and it simmered down. Didn't seem to be the best option so-" Liam cuts off, shrugging. "Started focusing on writing and stories n'd such."

There's this clicking of heels from nearby and Zayn lifts his head beside Liam.

"More sugar cubes for you, darling?" The waitress; Mary, offers. Her name tag shimmering off of low quality brewery lights.

Zayn nods and settles back when she turns at Liam who rejects it kindly.

"So you're the next Shakespeare, mate. M'calling it." Zayn jokes when they're alone again, Liam's eyes crinkling at it all and Zayn traps the laugh he slips seconds later deep in his own chest. It's rough and drawn out and he snickers himself.

"No, not nearly there, but one day." Liam answers, seriously.

"One day." Zayn repeats, tasting the words on his tongue because they feel good when they mix in the air between the two of them.

This soothing mist that's not really there, but Zayn likes to think this hazy, tired feeling is good for him in a way he won't be able to express-

(not now, but soon.)

"So you're happy with your book cover life, then?" Liam wonders suddenly and Zayn, he thinks this repetitive, but something in Liam's eyes draws the answer past his lips.

"Don't love it. I mean, m'doing the one thing your mum and dad told you not to do as a little lad-"

"Judge a book by it's cover." Liam finishes, smiling into his tea.

"Exactly. And I don't, like,  _love_  it, right? But it can be fun and entertaining and not completely dreadful-"

Liam's whisper comes too quickly, too soundlessly for Zayn to even pick up but he does and it sounds a lot like, "don't you want to love something?"

And Zayn simmers back into a feeling he isn't ready for. Mass amounts of dopamine pumping to his brain and spreading through his veins at high speeds like microscopic race cars and-

"One day."

 

 

===

 

 

"You're sold."

Caroline's voice startles Zayn the following morning, her back leaned up against his side of the office with her lips lifted up and her nails scratching lightly at her denim thigh. Her eyes are bright in this lighting and she looks- impressed? Proud? Sighing happily when Zayn squints at her, popping his tongue out for a quick sweep over and-

"Sold, Malik. L. J. Payne's signing you off to work on his cover." She clarifies, stepping forward, her heels sinking into the carpet.

Zayn can't help the smile that slithers it's way along his expression, the burst of relief that leaks somewhere in his chest even though he sort ofknew.

"Go figure, yeah?" She adds, snorting like she knows more than she's leading on.

"Reckon so," Zayn sniffs, the air a lemon tangerine tint that must be Lucy from Editing a few cubicles down.

Caroline purses her lips, thinning them out and staring, admirably at Zayn while she traces patterns into her side coat with her left hand. "You know you're amazing at what you do, don't you, lovely?"

Zayn winces, barley, while she presses her nose into her shoulder, swallowing.

"A godsend, darling. Really. You've got talent n'd potential." She straightens her knees out, leaning a shoulder back to the wall, closer this time.

"Maybe," Zayn shrugs, fingers loose along his pen as he scribbles in his journal. The leather back with all of his brilliant ideas and designs and sketches no one will ever see but himself.

"Definitely," Caroline corrects, stepping closer and fiddling with the collar to Zayn's turtleneck. It's itchy along his neck and he sighs when she traces the talon of her nail along the fabricated ridge, flattening it out properly.

"You just lack proper dressing skills, yeah?" She giggles into her elbow, patting at his back because she's so motherly when he doesn't need her to be.

(Only he won't ever turn down her self esteem boosts because she swears that's the only thing she's good at besides taking care of Brooklyn and being the best she can be.)

"And mate skills, both ways. You and those two idiots-"

"Caroline," Zayn warns, playfully, spinning his chair slowly to the left and meeting her eyes under thick lashes that feel heavy on his eyelids.

"You know I just worry f'r you." She shakes her head, resting a hand on her hip while Zayn thumbs at his belt buckle. Missing leather because Louis rushed him out of his flat this morning only to be late himself and if that isn't irritating-

"N'd someone's got to keep you out of trouble when you're so far from home." She sighs, knitting hr brow and Zayn can almost make out the question she slips him before she goes there. "Your mum's alright? Same with those sisters of yours, yes?"

Zayn keeps his head bowed, swallowing down that lump of rejected phonecalls and not enough reassuring texts back and forth between his family.

"Zayn, you are keeping in touch?" Caroline wonders, tilting her head and Zayn rubs up along the nape of his neck when he spots Louis shuffle in off the lift just across the hall.

"Course," he mumbles, keeping that lie pressed under his tongue until he doesn't have to-

"Track malfunction on the tube, Carey. Not my fault." Louis blurts before Caroline can slash into him.

She sighs and he sets his bag down, flipping the loose fringe from his eyes and smiling back and forth between the two of them-

"We got the hookers book?"

Zayn keeps his eyes low when he feels Caroline's vision burning into him. He knows she really knows and now it's all going downhill without a doubt so he scratches at his neck and winces with a slow, drawn out, "go figure, yeah?"

 

 

===

 

 

"What kind of asshole doesn't have cable?"

Zayn's den is smoky from his previous cigarette and mixed with cologne from Niall's homeland, according to the box come in early from his mum. The windows are all open because the amount of pyro's in his building terrify him, so he doesn't exactly plan on taking chances. The coffee table is overpopulated with beer cans, silver tinned aluminum reflecting off of a dim ceiling fan light and Louis is complaining.

But that's nothing out of the ordinary.

"Any art kid,  _ever_." Zayn emphasizes sinking into the corner of his couch pondering salary while Niall taps away at his mobile, unphased.

He's got this face lit up like he's dealing with patients on end, but he's never quiet been the buzz-in ' _refill my cup_ _pa_ _, nurse_ ' everyone always makes him out to be.

"Then I guess m'popping in me own source of entertainment, considering Ni-guys caught dead texting ponytail girl and you're, well-" Louis stutters, shrugging whole he presses his thumb and forefinger along the outside case to his FIFA signed disc off of Ebay or Amazon or whatever possible sight he could have snagged it from.

(It isn't signed, but Zayn and Niall won't ever tell him that Andrea Pirlo doesn't dot his 'i's.)

"Ponytail girl?" Zayn repeats and Niall lifts his head, narrowing his eyes at Louis.

"Ah, now we've got 'im!" Louis shouts, sticking his tongue out past his lips.

"Bugger off, Tommo." Niall groans, clicking his phone into a lock and Zayn watches as the screen slowly dims out.

"Ponytail girl is Ni's girlfriend. He's a right sucker f'r the silky skin, beer chugging-"

"Shut up," Niall scowls, tossing a pillow from Zayn's couch over and knocking Louis in the shoulder with it.

"Alright, alright," Louis raises his hands in defense, "at least you're getting some."

"And you aren't?" Zayn wonders, comically. Blinking over at Louis who has his arms crossed and eyes beaded in this direction.

"Yes, Zayn. Is that  _so_  hard to believe?"

"Yeah." Niall and Zayn say, unicidicly, smirking at each other from across the room.

"Whatever. Harry's ill or summat n'd I've got absolutely no-"

"Charm?" Niall offers and Louis huffs.

"Manners?" Zayn adds to the list and Louis flips him off, childishly.

"No chance without 'im, you dickheads." He spits out, plopping himself down on the opposite end of Zayn's sofa and scuffing his heels up along the coffee table, nicking his corona between his fingertips and gulping down a quick sip.

"Doesn't matter. I've got you lads who aren't half bad, n'd-"

It's a sound Zayn doesn't entirely expect, a buzz at his flat door with a blinking red light and a static connection at the bottom of his building. He's pressing himself to his feet before he can think and swaying towards the front.

"Who in the hell-" Louis wonders, a bratty tone and questioning hollers Zayn's way."Did'ya order something?"

He holds his breath, slipping his thumb along the buzz-in and pressing his ear to the speaker.

"Zayn?"

Liam.

His voice is raspy, like he hasn't spoken all day until now and it makes sense because he's always sucked into some writing piece, forgetting to drink or eat or just simply breathe in between indents.

(But those are just assumptions, Zayn wouldn't know.)

"Come on up." Zayn instructs, softly into the receiver, bowing his head when he turns back to Niall, who's fiddling with the game system controller. Louis, who's nagging him to be careful with his toys and-

Light knocking light fingertips bumping on wood and Zayn flicks the lock before breathing, pulling his door back and just-

Liam's standing there. Like he promised he would be at 7:30 on this Friday night with frost bitten cheeks and a scarf the color of marshmallows tied around his neck in a knot. He's blinking away light flurry flakes that have collected on his eyelashes and Zayn concludes it's too cold for November.

"Hey," Liam says, softly, sucking in a breath of warm air that radiates from past Zayn's shoulders.

"Hey." Zayn hums back, pressing his head along the door frame and kicking his foot back, nearly denting the wall when he notices the bottle of rum nestled into his left palm.

"Kraken?" He reads the title, tilting his head and Liam nods, unsure.

"Yeah, like, thought it'd be a good way t' break the ice n'd-" He stops short when he notices Zayn's grin sneaking across his thinned lips. "S'not too much, right?"

Zayn breathes in a steady draw of air through his nose, "Not at all."

Liam nods, crinkling his lips and stepping in, slowly, tugging at his scarf with his free right and hesitating before stepping forward into more direct light.

His eyes wander the space and Zayn watches, curiously, the way he tilts his chin at the high beams crossed along this loft like space. Pupils redirecting to a flickering Tv with both of Zayn's best mates and it's only a matter of time before-

"Zayno, get the chips n'd-"

Louis eyes flick over to Liam and Niall hits the pause button when he notices delay because he's always been a fair lad no matter what circumstance provided.

"Who's this?" Louis wonders, standing to his feet, narrowing his eyes like he completely blocked Zayn out earlier when he very clearly mentioned Liam.

"M'Liam." Liam mumbles, raising confused brows at Zayn who shrugs.

"The Liam?  _Fuck_ , I knew that. I  _so_  knew that." Louis shakes his head, cackling into his elbow. "Right, then, mate. S'good?"

Liam nods, less stiff, holding out his hand when Louis insists, nodding ahead.

"Hooker signs?" He blurts, furrowing his brows and Zayn holds down a bubbling giggle in his throat when Louis' tenses up tight.

"Right, er, sorry about that. Jus' a misunderstanding, man." Louis raises his hands (like Liam would actually sock him and that's- well, a dream of Zayn's, only he knows it won't be happening).

"Hey, bro! What'd ya do t' deserve bein' stuck with Zayn here?" Niall hollers from closer by, slipping up in between Louis and pulling Liam in for a hug that's so brutally tight. "Nothin' too awful, I s'pose?"

Niall's winking over Liam's shoulder at Zayn and Zayn, well, he's tugging at his collar because this is so awful if it isn't traumatizing for him already.

Liam doesn't answer right away because quite frankly, he doesn't seem to know exactly what to say. It was a simple plan like  _'quick hello and then everyone's too smashed off their arse to be able to tell the difference between talk and awkward giggles._ '

"Nothing yet," Liam responds, smiling back at him.

"Well, you'll come to find Zayn's an absolute toss-off-"

"Louis," Zayn mumbles, rubbing at the nape of his neck and blinking down.

"But he's a real teddy bear once you get to love him." He finishes, smirking at Zayn from behind his corona bottle.

And the word  _love_  sticks particularly close to Zayn's heart. A different definition than just Niall and Louis because they're practically family but- It's like it just won't  _fuck off_  and he's not sure if he likes that fuzzy feeling that comes along with Liam's doey eyes and plump lips and the words 'I like you' that shouldn't be pictured in his head  _this_  early.

He simply doesn't-

- _Like_  Liam like he might.

He just fancies him enough to stare at his lips and brush up against him whenever he gets the chance just to catch a whiff of his cologne and-

"No shit, the lad brought Kraken rum? The shit's  _siiick_." Louis drags out, nodding his head like he approves and, well, better than not.

"Fuck, Zaynster. You've got a keeper." Niall nudges him, whispering lowly when Liam comes close to hand off the bottle and-

It's so incredibly chiché and Zayn hates it. Really, he fucking hates the way Liam's skin feels so soft yet rough on his, the way his fingertips stutter and his lashes beat like butterfly wings on his cheeks. And Zayn wants to just-

Touch him? No, that's odd on the second date, or like- it  _isn't_  a date, just a hang out with a lad Zayn fancies more than most.

That's it.

Nailed on the head and Zayn's convinced.

 

 

===

 

 

It's around midnight and they're all giggling like idiots- most of them, anyway.

Liam's had a few nips of mixed rum floats while Louis has gulped down a few cheek fulls of cola fizz and a stack of red bull cans he swears he's going to clean up by the time he stumbles home, but if Zayn knows any better...

Niall's got his own mug, (as usual) sipping lightly at the sour sting that lasts along his lips and has him scowling at his own tongue.

And Zayn's-

He's watching as Louis and Niall nearly beat each other to death with the station controllers. Yeah, Louis is that competitive, and yeah, Niall's that naive to stick around and play even though he knows there won't be a positive outcome. Physically or mentally, that is.

And it's only logical when they're both slurring, squinting at the tv because neither of them can give a shit less about anything besides the video screen- For Zayn to tug Liam from the couch in between up to the roof and watch the stars drift by.

Or something like that.

There's a wedge kicked in tight between the door and the frame and Zayn doesn't let go while Liam stumbles behind him, giggling helplessly into his shoulder because he might be a little drunk and Zayn's using the proof of rum in his blood for confidence and perhaps a little more.

But all of the thought spins away when Zayn skids closer to the roof side, pegging himself to the side railing and letting Liam go so he can stand for himself because this view is-

Well,  _stunning_.

The way the car lights and building lamps mix into this iridescent glow that blurs Zayn's vision and  makes him dizzy.

That and Liam's nudging into him with his hip and-

"Got me up here so you could shove me off?" Liam wonders, crossing his forearms over the top bar. Icy metal that spikes Zayn's skin like needles.

"'Course not. You're too cool f'r me to attempt homicide," Zayn snorts, knocking his hip back into Liam's when he laughs, lowly.

" _Too cool_." Liam repeats, mockingly.

"Asshole," Zayn mutters, biting back at his lip. "Just meant you're like-"

He stops short, drawing his eyes up the way Liam shifts beside him, tilting his body closer. The moon's bright above their heads and it's like a spotlight on a starry night like tonight and Zayn waits for the perfect alignment before he slings his arm around Liam's waist, knocking their stomachs together and kissing him like he's forgotten how to breathe.

Sucking wetly on Liam's bottom lip and maybe he's instantly in love with the spice of Kraken rum and fizzy cola still leftover on his tongue. Or the burst of sound that ricochettes up Liam's throat and past Zayn's teeth, knocking his fronts carelessly to Liam's and kicking the tips of his toes to the side of Liam's scuffy timberlands.

He's pulling away slowly, tucking his lip under his tongue and waiting for that spike of regret to knock him upside the head, that simmering of hatred he's going to feel for pushing it too far and snogging recklessly on a rum bitten night where the sky is too lively.

"Like a good kisser." Zayn spits out before Liam can question him, or sock him in the shoulder or shake his head in disgust.

But Liam laughs, shoving the sound and muffling it away into his coat shoulder, backing up a step, and then another, and another and Zayn's afraid up until-

"These hooks just roll right off your tongue, don't they?"

Zayn squints, staying pinned against the railing, still, "I s'pose."

Liam shoves his hands into his coat pockets, biting at a smile and stepping back on his heel, too far away for Zayn to meet his eyes through starry blur and halfway drunken fuzz. So he tries his best to match an expression when Liam sighs into the air, knocking his head back and gurgling along his words.

"I don't like how much s'working."

 

 

===

 

 

The space is overwhelmingly huddled, but that's no surprise, really.

Not when Louis picks the night out. The Saturday to come with too many city birds from up North and not enough amusement in Zayn's brain to even think of  _this_  as a good time. Not like he's cut out bar weekends with his boys because watching Louis get rejected without Harry is disturbingly pleasant and Zayn wouldn't mind a repeat of the looks on each lads face whenever he approaches them.

It usually ends rough, a middle finger to his face that Zayn chokes back laughs at and the occasional blatant ignoring that seems to fall in the 40% of men range.

But all of that only lasts an hour or so, because Harry's shouldering his way through the crowd and Zayn can spot him before he even reaches their spot at the bar.

"Fuckin' useless wingman, you are Styles." Louis grumbles when he spots him, nudging into Zayn's side and propping himself up on a stool.

"Feeling better, man?" Zayn wonders, tapping his fingernails along the bartop.

"Yeah, actually. Thanks, Zaynster. You're a real pal." Harry nods his head, slowly, flipping his middle finger up at Louis who attempts some shitty apology.

"Didn't mean it, babe. Y'know I love ya'." Louis chimes, knocking his elbow lightly into Harry's side because he can't be too rough.

"Yeah, right." Harry mumbles back, not having it clearly and Zayn snorts into his elbow.

"Where's Ni-guy at? Long night at the clinic?" Harry wonders, shunning Louis brutally and he's whimpering like a pup, sweeping the fluffy fringe from his eyes in order to pull a face.

Zayn shrugs, cluelessly, quirking his lip and waiting for some unlucky lad or bird to fall into the trap that is Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson.

This unbreakable, unstoppable team.

The air is warm and stuffy as it filters in his lungs and he thinks he could go for a damp cig out on the back deck. Charm his way in for a light and maybe catch a few snaps of the graffitti out back for Liam who's desperate for his cover ideas while Zayn doodles pointlessly on scrap, sending him every bind idea he's got because-

He's his client.

(And maybe a little more Zayn won't title until he's sure.)

"Oi, lads. M'not missing out on a show yet, eh?" Niall butts in suddenly, clinking his ice beer down on the counter top. Wiggling his eyebrows like some dopey clown and Zayn snickers while Louis squints his eyes along.

"Not yet," Louis grumbles, leaning on his elbows and propping his chin up.

Zayn snorts, lifting his brows and bringing his bottle rim to his lips. They're all pathetic.

"Something funny, Zayn?" Louis wonders, on edge and licking his lips over like some territorial lion.

And there is- something funny. The way  _this_  works. This process every weekend now and then where Louis drags a brooding Harry out to some deluded bar where the lighting is shit and his camera is too fragile to be placed just so he can pop his dimples and show off his pretty eyes and then, yeah, that's it, direct the bewildered prey into Louis' arms just so he can land a clean lay-in with whoever he's chosen.

And that's the end, really. Unless he gives away his number which usually never occurs except for that one night back in June that seemed to drag on into mid-August that Zayn's not aloud to think about let alone speak or " _I'l cut ya dick off, bro. Mean it._ "

"Nah, mate." Zayn shrugs, sinking back into awful posture he knows Caroline would scold him for if she were here.

"Speaking of funny-" Louis grins, diabolically, "where's that boy of yours? Thought for sure we'd reel him in after last night."

Zayn sucks in a sharp breath, although he's an idiot because he chokes, blatantly on smoke since he's not used to not lighting up and this is an ambush.

"Boy?" Harry wonders before Zayn can shut it down and he winces, sourly.

"He's not, like-"

"He's Zayn's personal hooker." Louis nods, confirming the lie he's made up in his head and Zayn's sputtering.

"No, that's definitely  _not_  what he is. Just a mate." Zayn clarifies, desperate even though, well, maybe he's slightly lying.

He's never been good with confrontation. Not enough speech therapy for starters as a younger lad and in some ways he's grateful for the slur in his words every now and then because it's like a rewind button for verbal mistakes. Plus a lack of eye contacts training and he won't let himself fall head over for someone that's indefinite in his life.

Not again.

"You're already back on the saddle?" Harry wonders, like some midwestern dolt and Zayn sighs, scratching along his eyebrow.

"Maybe, I just-"

"Maybe?" Harry repeats, curiously.

"Maybe." Louis nods his head, rolling his eyes around and Zayn thinks he may as well just go until-

"Here comes one," Niall knocks his chin up, as obvious as possible and Zayn flicks his eyes over to where Harry's standing beside Louis.

" _One_? Niall we don't objectify people here." Harry corrects because Niall's a pig in some instances, but that's minor.

"Right, forgot. Here comes a strapping handsome bloke." Niall repeats, holding a thumbs up and Zayn swallows down the lump of humor lodged in his throat.

And it begins, the way Louis' gaze directs to the lad walking by, slow like he wants to be stopped and chatted up. Some uni student with, if Zayn could guess, a fake ID stored away in his dollar store wallet. Flattened down hair and eyes like Australian coastlines.

"Hey," Harry speaks up, nodding his head at the boy who smiles, blinking up at Harry because he grows a centimeter every night and that's  _terrifying_.

"Hey," he responds, clueless and Zayn pinches either side of his nose, fighting down the urge to throw this whole night away and just sleep through the next 24 hours.

"This is my mate Louis." Harry instructs, raising his eyebrows and Zayn follows the way the other bloke's eyes stir into Louis'.

"He's a virgin."

Niall chokes on his beer, sputtering into a laugh that echoes behind Zayn's ear and he snorts, turning his head away. This can't actually-

"Is he?" The lad with crystal eyes wonders, smirking at Louis who's- he's  _fucking pouting_ , like a puppy without it's owner and he looks so ridiculous in this moment, Zayn thinks about pulling up all of his filthy tweets on his phone and projecting them onto his forehead.

"Yeah, pretty inexperienced." Harry winces, quirking his lips. "What are you going t' do, yeah?"

He tilts his head next when Louis steps closer, eyeing this boy like he's hungry and Harry tips his chin. "Excuse me. You two have fun. Maybe teach 'im a thing or two."

Zayn watches, bewildered, only he shouldn't be because this sort of act gets pulled every night only half of the time Louis is a doctor and owns a beach house over in the states with three red ferraris and an adopted orca at Seaworld- (which Harry cringes at.  _Every time_ ). Lack of emphasis and truth but Louis always ends up with a uni bird or some professor lad tugging at his dick until dawn.

And Harry always ends up drinking until he needs directions to the exit of his favorite pub.

Which is- bitterly unfortunate, but Zayn blames it on the stress that comes along with being the dependent variable in Louis' sex life.

And they all fall into it in the end because everything's unfair and life is merely a waiting call until they're necessarily  _needed_.

But that's temporary.

 

 

===

 

 

London is a mask of grey, fumbling clouds that hide away the sunset and cool the temperature down by a few degrees. The city is just as lively, traffic halts a dozen floors below and not enough road for any sign of breakthrough. There are raindrops streaked into the glass of his side window and Zayn sips, markedly on his tea that diminishes with every gulp.

His apartment is silent. Dead silent like harbor waters and he's grateful for it all.

Yet he's still not used to the fuming of a tea kettle in the morning with someone there, stood in front of the stove that doesn't work with a long hanging t-shirt and a pair of ratty old joggers still fresh with a scent of Purex pine scent.

And it's calming. Stilled air with a pinch of serenity. 

All until his mobile begins to buzz and he begins to shuffle around until he finds the source, sliding his thumb across the screen and sucking his lungs full of a new breath when he reads Liam's name.

He doesn't hesitate, because those never last when you think about it, and he presses a glass screen to his temple.

"Hey," he says, toneless into the receiver, kicking at the pillow lost from his sofa on the floor.

"Hey," Liam greets equally from the other end. "So how about Hyde tomorrow at 11?"

Zayn pauses, unexpectedly ruffling a hand through his jet hair as he processes, because Liam isn't- this couldn't actually be something like a date rolling it's way into his agenda.

No, of course not.

Just a mate.

(Who five percent of the time, Zayn's snogging and the other 95 percent, is thinking of snogging, but-)

"Or like, you don't have to. If you're busy or summat? Dunno, like-"

"Yeah," Zayn whispers into the line, quirking his lips into an uncontrollable grin.

"Yeah?" Liam repeats, out of conformation and Zayn nods even though, well, that's pointless, but-

"Alright, cool, I'll beep you coordinates?" Liam offers and Zayn hums, hazily. Lightly laughing into the receiver.

"Fucking nerd," he kicks his foot out, waiting for Liam to defend himself in a static defense.

He does, as expected, something pout worthy like- "not nerdy.  _Cool_ , remember?"

Zayn  _does_  and he stays quiet, sniffling into his elbow while Liam burns through his receiver.

"Right, then. G'night." Liam swallows on the other end and Zayn smirks, crimson cheeks he hopes don't glow through his dark den area.

"G'night,  _Leeyum_."

 

 

===

 

 

The sky is reflective of the center pond. White swans and birchtree ducks with green stem bills and faded brown feathers. The sun is out, bright as is shows itself along Zayn's skin and he blinks up at it under thick lashes. Sniffing out a scent like pollen in November, but it's different. Bare trees that twist in the light wind and not exactly enough of a gust to sting, but it's enough. There's dead leaves caught under his boots and he's frowning at the mucky ground and drizzled pavement sticking to his heel.

"Didn't think you'd agree, really." Liam hums suddenly, knocking his shoulder against Zayn's and smirking over at him when he stops short, glaring with a hint of ' _I'm kidding_ ' and continuing to step along the gravel path.

"What kind of lad would I be if I didn't own up to the commitment?" Zayn wonders, playfully. Clinging onto that wisp of deja vu still strong in his memory and he think the same for Liam when he giggles, lightly.

It's this sound he knows he's thought about loving before and he doesn't find it odd, persay. The craving gape in his side for a cigarette that he fills to every extent with Liam's alto words.

(Not quite the exact same ring of his uncle's voice. Slightly higher with a twist of Northern London.)

"Commitment," Liam repeats, shoving his hands into his nylon twoffer. Dark colored, yet flamboyant compared to his light wash jeans. Ripped out knees and loose sews.

Zayn stays quiet, sniffing at the air and keeping his nose tilted toward the tips of his toes.

"So you're mates aren't half bad." Liam says, nudging his hip along Zayn's and-

Well, it's daft, really, but Zayn gets giddy at the action, pressing back with his hands shoveled into his front pockets. "Yeah, they're not so spectacular, either, but I s'pose."

"Trick was t' get 'em so wasted they  _had_  to like me." Liam shrugs, like some genius.

"Brilliantly played, man." Zayn nods his head, puckering his lips. "Won 'em right over.  
Especially with that kraken. Popular in Ireland and Niall's like-"

"100%, right? Could tell." Liam says, scraping his shoes along the pavement. Broken in and old, but the rubber timberland curve fit his legs just right.

"Right on." He flicks his tongue along his teeth, swiping his thumb under his chin.

He's following close near Liam, ducking his head when he goes to sit on the bench he's been eyeing for twenty yards, planting his feet down and eyeing the way the pond curdles small waves up along the crazy bank.

"Beautiful place, innit?" Liam wonders, quietly, plopping himself down. "S'me favorite place to come in this city"

He's not too close, not too far, right in the middle with his shoulder brushing against Zayn's and he likes this.

It's like the world's stuck around them and no one can see them but, well,  _them_.

An entire universe flipped into slo-o while Zayn takes in the view of a place he's never really opened his eyes to before. This city with this fresh air in this cut out park with  _this_  boy tucked into his arm-

(Almost.)

"Used t' love comin' to parks when I was a little lad. Me sister's'd take me," Liam wets his lips, blinking out over the pond and the skyline and London's skyrocketed skyscrapers that cut jaggedly into the view. Poking at the clouds and scraping at the sun's rays.

"Yeah? Lots of parks up in-"

"Wolverhampton." Liam finishes, coughing along his words. "Far up North. Nothing near here."

"Right, towny bloke. Born n' raised with the hay n'd the horses, yeah?" Zayn snickers into his shoulder, shifting his weight down an inch when Liam nudges him roughly with his elbow.

"Shut it. Not even close, dude."

Zayn hums, in taking a breath that doesn't sting his lungs and he thumbs circles away inside the pockets of his coat, ignoring the way his hair mats to his forehead with every gust of weak wind. Not enough product and perhaps a rushed rinse because Liam beeped him like he promised somewhere around ten while Zayn groaned, endlessly, into his comforters. Cursing at the world for sunlight past this time and dragging himself up along shiny wood floors with his Green Lantern socks slipping along the curves.

"So you moved down for writing n'd all that?" Zayn wonders, straightening his smile out so it fits his face.

"Something like that. Plus I've always wanted to be where everyone else was." Liam says, quirking his lip. "And J.K Rowling lives an hour or two away, so I thought like, ten minutes closer to me idle n'd all that."

Zayn nudges his cheek into his shoulder, catching the burst of rose petal in Liam's cheeks when he flips his vision around. "Harry Potter's sick, man."

"Nothing better out there." He shakes his head.

"There never will be." Zayn continues, blocking the sunlight out with a tilted head.

"Besides every episode of Friends, ever." Liam shrugs, obviously and Zayn flicks the memory of early morning bitterness and stacks of DVD's in the corner of Liam's living room out of his mind.

"So you've got it all planned out. Write a smashing series. One book down, yeah?" Zayn asks, rolling his shoulder to shake the sweep of wind from his exposed wrists and Liam nods, slowly.

"Yeah, and a-"

Zayn turns to look at him, keeping his pace.

"And I started a, erm." Liam stutters, biting the inside of his cheeks to keep from speaking, (Zayn knows this, he's picked up the habit because Liam's so easily flustered and anyone can see with simple observations, but-)

"Hm?" He murmurs, lured in by curiosity and the way Liam won't make eye contact like he's embarrassed.

"S'this lecture series?" Liam finishes, and Zayn, well, he doesn't exactly snort. He just keeps quiet, waiting for an explanation he knows will come sooner or later.

"It's like a club. Authors can come and, like, share their work? Sort of a self esteem boost when you've only sold just under five hundred copies." Liam blubbers on, unphased but Zayn finds it admirable and passionate, the way Liam's heart hangs onto every word. "Sort of a proper thing to do I reckon. Giving back, y'know?"

Zayn squints, admirably, "That's sick, and people come?" He wonders, craning his neck to the side.

Liam swallows down a gulp, smirking at his feet when he bows his head, "well, er, no."

"No?" Zayn repeats, humorously and Liam's laughing, too. He can tell the way his arms are shaking, barely in his jacket.

(Or maybe that's just November being an asshole, but.)

"S'not funny, s'like, sad?" He offers, lifting his head to meet Zayn's gaze. It's strangely intimidating for a minute and it takes a lot for Zayn to hold it but Liam smiles something manic and it's  _okay_.

"But I figure, like, if I keep doing it people will show up. It'll catch on and it'll be a really, really amazing thing, right?" He wonders, like Zayn holds all the answers and maybe-

Maybe  _here_ , in this bubble of a day, he does. Just to put Liam's mind at ease because the whole hopeful eyes is quite frankly wounding, but he'll nod his head and convince himself otherwise.

"You should come along to one." Liam blurts before Zayn can suck in his next breath and he sniffs, loudly, quirking his lips to avoid choking.

"Sorry, fuck, like if you're around? Dunno your schedule or anything." Liam rushes out along his tongue, nervously.

Zayn grins, untucking his hands and blinking down at his thumbs because Liam's a wrecked mess when he's nervous, flipping in between all of the right and wrong words.

"Think I could manage, babe."

 

 

===

 

 

Zayn likes Liam's flat.

It's got light grey rugs, brass handles like golden mirrors and thin walls, because-

Well, he nearly plummets through one when Liam slams him back into a divider, snogging him hotly and sucking on his neck until his senses are overloaded with lust and a plaguing load of lemon ginger cologne Liam likes to coat his neck in.

And Zayn's about two point three seconds from nutting off in his pants because- fuck, if he hasn't waited long enough for something steamy like this.

It's hot. Too hot with their moans and shudders slipping down the walls like wet paint. The windows are sealed shut on either end of the hallway they're huddled in, Liam stuck grinding his pelvis up and knocking along Zayn's groin, his lips wet and his eyes wild every time he pulls away. A chance for Zayn to gawk at him and catch his breath because Liam just looks so fucking-

Spent. Fucked over and desperate in one of the most beautiful ways with his hair ruffled, spiked up on his scalp from Zayn's fingers, to the way his breathing is so reckless and Zayn decides, in this moment of pure entire want, that this is his favorite L.J. Payne.

Right along side the smart, snarky commented, stuttering mess Liam (who he knew up until five minutes ago when he brought up having to piss and Liam, being the gentle, oblivious stranger he is, nodding his head and sending Zayn up a few flights. The street down a few from hyde because public loo's are revolting and mainly, Zayn just wanted to get him in bed and apparently, Liam had the same idea, but-)

The Liam who's got split lips and questionable eyes like he's just not sure about you and maybe a little bit more hidden behind his sharpie black pupils.

 _No_ , Zayn's favorite, by a landslide, is the Liam who has him pinned back against his own wall with a proper stiffy and not enough of an excuse as to why he's so fucking horny.

But Zayn doesn't exactly care. He's the same way and that's well-

Not unhealthy. It's _attractive_.

"So fuckin' stiff already, shit, c'n feel you up on me thigh, babe." Zayn mumbles, messily along his lips, dipping his tongue out and curling it around Liam's front teeth, awkwardly, but it works.

"Can't, like.  _Fuck,_  Zayn." Liam mutters, pointlessly, slipping his hips up and Zayn bites at Liam's lip, roughly, reeling him in.

"I was jus' thinkin-"

"About me pissing? Did it turn ya' on, love?" Zayn wonders, cackling when Liam nudges his fist into his side, kissing at his neck hotly.

"No, like, you're just so-" Liam cuts off, breathless, "s'like you're askin' for it n'd m'so into it, man."

Zayn grins, pathetically,  _glowing like a lantern,_  he thinks, tilting his neck to the side so Liam can do as he pleases.

"Just wanna get this kit off, mate." Liam grunts, tugging at one of Zayn's belt loops with his left index, curling his lips up Zayn's ear.

"Yeah, babe? Then what?" Zayn wonders, filthily, sniffing the air and lifting his chin so Liam can bite lightly into his ski, licking over the sensitive marks he leaves behind.

"Thinkin' I could like," Liam flicks his tongue over his lips. Cherry red and plump and Zayn just wants to suck them, really.

Like sour candy or gumdrops salted in watermelon ooze.

"Blow you," Liam swallows, firmly, chest pressed to Zayn's while his heartbeat hammers relentlessly behind his ribcage.

Zayn sucks in a deep breath, letting his wrists slip down to his waist, fingers tucking under his buckle and loosening the strap because he's not going to let Liam's offer slide by. He wants this like he wants a promotion or like he wants Louis to quit showering in his flat because "water bills are outrageous, Z' and every other bullshit excuse that comes out of his mouth.

Zayn wants this like he wants Liam and that's pretty much the same thing, so he stops thinking and he digs his thumbs into his waistline.

"Don't have any flatmates I should know about? C'n be quiet n'd all, like-"

"No, no. Nothing like that." Liam utters, tilting his head down at Zayn's groin. The restricted dick he's so fucking hungry for and Zayn thinks-

Actually, he doesn't, he just presses his denim down his things, briefs next, addicted to that flash of cool air that hits his stiff shaft, curling around his balls and winding up a fuzzy trail of hair that flickers messily up his belly.

And it's gone just like that- the cold. Liam's fingers, warm, sweatily rubbing off on Zayn's sensitive prick. He bucks his hip, wincing at the rough touch.

Liam coo's, pressing his nose along Zayn's jaw and jerking his hand up, sudden. "So stiff f'r me, hmm?"

Zayn whimpers. He fucking whimpers, tugging shamelessly on his bottom, sucking it under his front teeth and screwing his eyes shut. He's got the taste of Liam still fresh on his tongue and he can feel his lips soft, pressing into the low hoop of his t-shirt. Matching with inky magenta printed under his skin. A mirror effect that Zayn doesn't miss under thick lashes.

And Liam's descending, lower, lower, lower, hooking his palms into the curve of Zayn's arse, nosing at the tip of his prick and it's a ripple effect of curse words because he's so needy for warmth and a saturated cock between Liam's lips seems pretty fucking dreamable right now.

"Such a pretty boy," Liam hums, licking a slick stripe under Zayn's head and it's-

Indescribable.

He's never- there's never been intimacy between him and another lad, really. It's been pointless shags with too much liquor in his veins for him to entirely  _feel_  and this is so  _new_.

And he  _loves_  every bit of it, honestly.

Especially when Liam blinks up at him, gorgeous like with brown eyes the color of sanded wood and cinnamon scraps. His stubble light along his chin and he's sucking, like he does this on the side and-

Zayn eradicates that thought right out of his brain because he won't think about Louis and his insolent superstitions when Liam's throating his dick.

"Ya' look so hot, babe. Slurpin' on me dick." Zayn mumbles, barely. Gargling his words and sighing, guiltily.

Liam hums vibrations up Zayn's shaft and he can feel it from his balls to his ears and it's so-

Inordinately _amazing_.

He flicks his tongue, suddenly, curling it up under and then over Zayn's slit, flicking seemingly effortlessly but he's lapping like a pro. "Li-"

"C'n feel you so tense, man." Liam says, taking a breath and groping his fingers under Zayn's balls, cupping them gently and squeezing just the right amount.

" _Leeyum_ ," Zayn drags out, whining like a puppy and-

_Fucking hell._

"Gonna bust?" Liam wonders, innocent tone like this is his first time sucking cock and, well, Zayn doesn't dwell on that thought for too long.

"Think like, think I could-" Zayn clenches his jaw to keep it from dropping. Liam curling his tongue again.

"But?"

Zayn bucks his hips, slipping his tip along Liam's lips and he doesn't even mean to, really, but Liam takes him. Like a good lad, sucking along his head then lower, lower until he's full on red in the cheeks.

" _Shit_ ," Zayn makes the mistake of leaving his eyes open when Liam backs off, clearing his throat and bringing his fingers up to wrap around Zayn's thick girth. Palm brushing against thick, patchy hair spread around his base.

"Wanna finish, like-" Liam stutters, jerking his finger up, slow, "on me face? You could, y'know."

Zayn's knees go weak, he simmers into the thought, lathering his mind in pornographic amounts of pleasure and he nods, greedily but Liam doesn't seem to mind, he just-

"C'mon, then, babe. Nut off, right on me tongue." Liam urges, stroking faster, tossing Zayn's dick like it's his own and Zayn falls into the rhythm. Slowly, curling his toes into his squeaky trainers.

"Gonna, like-  _fuck_ , Liam, m'gonna." Zayn nods, sure of himself and the way his dick goes rigid, solid in Liam's grasp and he's so slick, he's so wet between Liam's slippery fingers that he just goes numb, shooting off like a fucking rocket and blubbering filthy 'so fucking hot on me dick, babe' repeatedly until he's spurting slowly, dribbling everywhere, he's sure, but he opens his eyes too soon and-

Liam's lapping at his chin, around his mouth, he's got Zayn's spunk streaked under his left cheek and he looks so fucking relieved, feeding off of Zayn's come like it's caviare- (and that's slightly awful to relate it all to, but Zayn's so hot and bothered and he's just came on a lads face.)

Liam's tongue is pink, cotton candy and rose petals when it curls along the crinkles dented into his mouth.

"You taste sweet, babe." Liam mutters up, like an asshole and Zayn's cock jerks, without a steady hand to guide. "Pineapples n'd shit? Heard s'good f'r your, uh, your-"

"Liam." Zayn mutters, interrupting, his breath steadying but there's no way in hell his blood is going to settle after this. Not now.

Liam lifts his chin, like something's wrong, but-

"Shag me, babe, s'like," Zayn stutters, eyes barely slits when Liam raises a brow, "you've got me come on your- you've just, fuck."

"Yeah?" Liam wonders, on his feet now, stepping closer and nosing his way along Zayn's lips, the bittersweet of Zayn's cum on his lips when he goes to wet them, Liam's treat left behind.

"Mhmm," Zayn nods, eager, gnawing at the corner of his lip because he's sort of desperate to taste himself because Liam's still got his sticky produce under his right eye and he-

Fuck, he steps forward, sealing the space in this cramped hallway and licking a stripe just under his nose, curling his tongue and tasting with every tastebud.

Liam doesn't stutter back, he just groans, bucking his restrained dick along Zayn's thigh, lower, slotting his lips with Zayn's and fiddling with his belt and tugging Zayn's arm with his left hand.

"C'mon."

 

 

===

 

 

There's a parachute of sheets that puff up around his sides when he falls back, teeth tugging-grin taken over Zayn's face because Liam's been fucking with his belt from the hallway to here and he pops it, proudly, shucking his jeans and kicking his timberlands off somewhere behind him, his arms are pressed to either side of Zayn's head and he lifts up into the kiss, wetting his lips all over again when Liam snogs him, messily, nuzzling his nose into the crook of Zayn's neck again and he can feel the tips of Liam's fingers tips scratching at his shirt.

"Been dying t' see what's underneath since the brewery. Those goddamn tattoos, base, s'like, really hot." He mumbles, shakily, kissing along Zayn's jaw and he parts, just enough, for Zayn to strip his t-shirt off. His jacket somewhere back in the hallway where he shimmied free with not enough freedom because Liam's rough and maybe Zayn likes that.

"Yeah?" Zayn wonders,  curling his fingers under the stitchings of his T. LIfting it up along his head and flinging it behind his head, squinting shadily up at Liam through the tinted light pouring through the curtains.

The withering sun and the beginning to another early Winter night Zayn might mind a little less with Liam pressed into his stomach.

"Shit, Zayn, you're like-"

"A human canvas?" Zayn offers, humorously with Liam shaking his head and admiring him fondly with just his eyes and a pair of trembling lips Zayn can't seem to stop wanting to just-

"Beautiful." Liam says instead, "you're  _beautiful_ , babe."

Zayn- shit, shit, shit. He feels it. Something hard, cradle itself in between his chest and his stomach and he swears his heart thumps a little faster at the way Liam's words curl along his tongue.

He doesn't say anything, he just looks. Stares, rather. Absentmindedly into Liam until he fuzzes out into a shadowy figure.

"Quit it n'd just-" Zayn utters before he falls into his own list of crafted perfection etched into Liam's shape.

"Right," Liam nods, sitting up his knees sunk into either side of Zayn's thighs, his legs wedged together and Liam peels his long sleeve loose from his limbs, splitting the material past his head and Zayn-

He swallows. Hard. Gawking like he knew he would, just not this bad and it's like he's discovering infatuation for the first time.

(Only it's more, he's just not aware yet.)

Liam's got this toned chest. He's not ripped, no. It's better, the way his body fits him. Or his torso at least. The way pink nipples stick out hard from his fuzzy pecs. Biceps like softballs under his skin, rippling veins that Zayn gets incredibly stiff over and Liam  _knows_.

"M'like, average, I think." He mumbles, when Zayn doesn't speak. He can't, honestly.

"Average,  _Liam-_ " he nearly moans through his sealed lips. "Shut up and  _fuck me_ , babe."

Liam looks stunned and he should be because Zayn's fucking desperate and he wouldn't take the tone back because Liam doesn't know how much of a pleasure to look at he really is.

"Really? If you're sure, right? I c'n hold off if you want t' think about-"

"Mate," Zayn drags out, sighing into his bare shoulder, smearing every pushy syllable he's got into his skin. "Can't exactly walk out on you when you're stiff and nearly fully arse naked."

Liam grins, hopelessly, swooping down with his jeans still high on his thighs and, yeah, Zayn tugs at them because he's never been more needy for someone than he is now. And  _fucking hell_  that feels particularly good for his shade of ordinary.

The way Liam tickles at his lips, shucking his skinnies down and tugging at Zayn's briefs that slip off easily. Easy when Liam's in control and Zayn's emotions have taken a first class ferry to Hell and back. 

But he loves that particular burn in his chest that chisels along his skin and makes his knees weak.

"S'it odd m'sort of in love with ya' dick?" Liam wonders, slowly, sniffling with Zayn's breefs slipped along his fury thighs and his dick thickening with the woosh of air and light of Liam's soft touch. "Hot like, feels nice n'd heavy on me tongue, mate."

Zayn sighs, keeps his palms flat and eyes slits when he watches Liam from this peculiar angle. Only its normal, it feels so normal and right and he craves a rough touch.

"Gonna suck me or fuck me, babe?" Zayn wonders, hurriedly, snorting when Liam seems to ponder the question. Like he's so hungry for Zayn's prick and that's-

 _Hot_. So he won't complain at all.

Liam twists his lip, palming Zayn's bare cock and fishing his own out past ripped jeans with his available hand, puncturing his lip the second his dick breathes. Flapping along his chest like a fucking elastic band. Only thick. So thick Zayn's lungs scream. He blinks, tracing Liam's meat with every highlife of his pupils. The way his head is covered by thin foreskin, his balls low, but with every breath they seem to tighten and Zayn's heart speeds up because-  _shit,_   _that's fucking hot._

He's got a fuzzy base with springy hairs circling around his girth and trailing up his belly. Meaty skin and a chest like-

A wrestler, or just some fit bloke he's seen on the posters in Niall's flat.

"You're like, you've got me thinkin' so filthy, babe." Zayn admits, leaning up on his elbows while Liam's confidence begins to build in his cheeks.

(And Zayn thinks he won't witness anything better in this world, ever.)

"Really?" Liam wonders, losing that spark of dominance.

"'Course, mate. C'mere." Zayn nods, beckoning him closer and he does, hovering his bare chest over Zayn's and nudging his nose along Zayn's cheek, keeping himself suspended with bulky arms on either side of Zayn's shoulders.

"Want me t' fuck you now? I've got like, m'not gonna last very long once I do 'cause you're like,  _fuck_  Zayn." Liam mutters along his ear and Zayn shifts, bucking his hips up to rub their pricks together, rough.

Liam sucks in a breath and Zayn feeds off of it, mentally. "Yeah, yeah."

"Want me t' open ya up a bit? Get me fingers down there or summat?" Liam wonders, careful the way he speaks. Gentle.

"If you, like, it'd probably help with  _your_  dick, dude." Zayn hums, hazily. Smirking into his shoulder and focusing in on the way Liam blushes, helpless, soaking his index in his mouth (which Zayn nearly busts at) shimmying himself down Zayn's body and gripping his thighs. Firm like.

It's a shiver of something electric that shoots up his spine when Liam presses his thighs apart, slightly, pressing his coated fingers under Zayn's balls and pressing his index to the damp rim of his hole, wiggling, not wasting time at all because it's been too long for both of them and that's no mystery.

Liam looks up, a look with his eyes like, ' _good?_ ' and Zayn nods, vigorously, gnawing at his lip when he feels Liam slip in, easily.

"Feels good, like-" Zayn stutters, rolling his shoulders when Liam goes deep. Twisting his fingers around.

Zayn writhes, jerking slightly when Liam pushes past a particular ring of muscle that just fucks him up. Honestly. Not like tequila nips or lemon citrus vodka, but better.

He's fast about it, too- Liam. His fingering skill and as daft as that sounds in Zayn's head, he's thankful. Thankful for that burn and hollow feeling he has lodged into his senses. His brain is screaming with two fingers stuffed in and he thinks it's just-

 _Hair-raising_.

The bristles on the back of his neck stiff and erect- (much like his own dick, pressed and leaking against his own stomach while Liam grunts and props himself uncomfortably.)

And he thinks he could probably come down like this, bust with Liam's knuckles nestled along his rim while he whispers about how much he'd like to be in Zayn, properly, right now.

So it's somewhere between Liam's offering to lick him out that Zayn draws the line, shifting up and sucking in a deep breath. Preparation.

Liam's looking puzzled, lifted brow and everything in this shady light and Zayn nods. "M'good, like, swear."

"Seriously?" Liam wonders, somewhat amazed and Zayn can spy that hint of cockiness tingling at his lips.

"Yeah, c'mon then." Zayn urges, sitting back with his elbows pegged into the sticky duvet, his back damp with sweat and he ignores the dryness in the back of his throat while Liam reaches a hand down to tug at his fattened dick. The way it bobs to life again is mental, Zayn thinks, watching intently.

His back is straight and Zayn wedges his eyes shut, sniffling at the silence and juicing of his own cock while the mattress shifts and Liam's-

He's stood by his bedside, rummaging around for-

"Not gonna fuck ya' dry, babe. Got some lube, n'd-"

"Right, right." Zayn nods, laying back straight while the drawr shuts in a dim room, the snapping cap of lubrication and Zayn's eyes shoot open when he feels the bed sink again, focus on the way Liam's slicking himself up and he doesn't want to ask, but he's got to because-

"You're, er, clean, yeah?"

Liam hesitates, like he's shocked only-

"Yeah," he laughs, nervously, or more so embarrassed. Rubbing his opposite hand up the side of his neck. "And you're-"

"Yes, I just had to know, right, cause-"

"S'cool, I get it. Safety procedure." Liam nods and Zayn snorts, obviously.

" _Safety procedures_. Shut it, Li."

Liam stays quiet, burying his grin away into his shoulder when he leans low, positioning his knees and narrowing his hips, lining his dripping dick up.

And he doesn't pause, really, the horny bastard- (which Zayn is grateful for, actually) he just sinks his tip along Zayn's wet rim, perfect aim and nothing catches fire immediately.

Liam whimpers, shifting in the weight of his heavy prick, sinking millimeters by second and Zayn- yeah, he's feeling it sooner than later with this boyish aroma choking him out and Liam's hands pressed into his furry thighs. His buckling knees giving way and Liam's shaft stretching him like-

He doesn't want to think taffy, because that's fucking vile, but-

"Shit," he mutters, lifting his head and making out the way LIam's forehead is glistening in sweat, the way his nipples are flipped out and the way his shoulders retract with the way he makes a break through somewhere deep in Zayn's asshole.

And Zayn thinks he's just become the definition of bottomed out. Gasping lightly for air while Liam stays wedged deep in his hole. Not daring to move while he works on catching his breath and Zayn holds a proper ' _fuck you, wimp_ ' down on his tongue because he's so full and Liam looks like he's just ran a marathon.

He can relate this moment to a while back. University with Louis at some outrageous woods bash. Leaves stuck to his own sweaty skin while some lad from his old highschool drilled him like a fucking maniac.

Only that boy was merciless and Liam's, like,  _the opposite_. Exhausted he may be, but utterly gracious in the same instance. Beautiful, really.

"Zayn, you're clamping me dick, babe." Liam releases a gasp of air, whether he meant to let the words escape or not, he's blinking down at him, blissed out.

"Can't really help it, mate." Zayn grunts, curving his spine and attempting at a positive bolt of feeling that he can feed off of.

And it works, actually, the strain of Liam's dick that has him lurching back just enough and coming back in contact that's so lurid in Zayn's mind, in his limbs, in his fingertips.

"Fuck," Liam gasps, bucking his hips back because now he's addicted to just moving and Zayn thinks he's ready. Or he hopes he is because he knows just as well Liam's going to  _actually_  fuck him and that's-

New. A  _good_  new Zayn holds onto until his skin is sizzling with Liam and little bit of pressure (or maybe a lot) he melts into instead of rejecting so blatantly.

"You're so stiff in me, man,  _s'hot_." Zayn grunts, barley. clenching with his words and Liam cries out, washing himself away with tight absorbing heat.

"So much pressure, Zayn, you're gonna squeeze the come out of me," Liam hums, sighing when he slips up and pegs Zayn deep and thorough. No stuttering in his hips when he slides back out, clean with Zayn shuddering like his first blowie at sleep away camp to some bird named Kim.

"Liam," Zayn gapes, gnawing on his lip, not hard enough to nip his blood stream, but he's got a feeling deep in his stomach that's coming soon.

(Or that's just Liam's dick prying at his insides, but-)

Liam groans, finally, low, when he pumps himself, pounding rougher. "You've got to know how hard it was to not, like-"

Zayn's eyes pinch open and he blinks up, questioning.

"That first night I- you were wasted and horny and you kept trying to get in me pants, Zayn." Liam admits, and embarrassing heat raises to Zayn's cheeks, weighing his head down.

"Fucking-" Zayn stutters, grunting along his words.

"No," Liam shakes his head, cupping Zayn's cheeks with his large fingers and it feels so rough when it's so smooth. "You grabbed me dick n'd like- I let you have me bed n'd I beat off so fucking hard thinking about you."

Zayn moans, loud. Draining his ears out and Liam ducks his head down, brushing his nose along Zayn's cheek. "Thought it was  _so_  fucking hot, babe. I couldn't just brush it off."

Zayn doesn't speak, nudging his nose into Liam;s shoulder when he drills his dick in, his balls slapping echoingly loud at the curve of Zayn's ass. Sweaty skin that ricochets off of the walls and drowns them both out.

"Came hard, too, covered me sheets n'd everything." Liam grunts, bucking his hips messily.

"Yeah?" Zayn wonders, curiously only he knows Liam's nodding.

His skin is on fire, scorthich like coals from his old backyard grill with sunrays and stinging lightbulbs sizzling all over. There's electric shock and every other possible feeling when Liam switches angles, brutal penetration.

"You're milking me, like-" Liam utters, too soon, "gonna-"

Zayn's dick is limp, slapping around his stomach while Liam laps at the sensitive area below his ear, sucking wet kisses out of stretchy skin. He can feel the pressure build back up in his balls again when Liam stutters, catching his breath and then rabbit fucking like a maniac.

His chest is sweaty, sticky and curly hairs that stay flattened down and Zayn reaches up, pressing his fingertips into slippery shoulders to get a better grip. He's licking at the shell of Liam's ear, opposite sides when Liam groans deep.

"Fuck, Zayn-"

"Gonna shoot off, lad?" Zayn whimpers in his ear, trying his best to keep his voice stern, but he can't exactly do that with a dick split between his cheeks.

"Think I might." Liam, says, rough, his words clinging to the sides of his throat like tarr.   
the   
"Go ahead," Zayn whispers, dragging the corner of his lip to the center of his mouth and exhaling shakily.

"Y'sure?" Liam wonders, voice withering away along with the load he's got building up his shaft and Zayn-

"Just fucking fill me, Liam. Want you to coat me ass n'd-" Zayn rushes out, cutting his words cut in half by the way Liam groans something deep like base drums and the way his hips stutter. HIs next whisp of air comes with a warm squeeze of gushing come that washes through Zayn's aching hole. A stinging rim when Liam pulls out, rubbing the tip of his dick along Zayn's puckering entrance, huffing his chest and spurting hotly all over again that Zayn clenches at.

Liam looks fucked over. Pornographic while he empties himself wetly all over Zayn's balls, up the shaft of his prick and fuck- this boy is loaded with spunk.

"So fucking hot, baby. Look what you've fuckin' done, Zayn.  _Shit_." LIam utters, an unbelievable mess of words while Zayn tugs relentlessly at his dick, Liam's spilled come for lube as he jerks his fingers, rubbing his thumb along his slit watching Liam's belly rise and fall, his wet cock slapping against his chest and it sends him over, honestly, even though it's nothing.

Or maybe it  _is_. This saturated cock in front of his eyes that was just stuffed all the way inside of-

"Liam, babe," Zayn drags out, shooting all over his chest, coating his stomach and sputtering at the specific wad of his own seed that splatters against his chin, dripping down his pecks and filling his belly button when he arches his back up, breathless.

"Fucking hell," he sighs, uncontrollably, focusing on the pleasure boomeranging through his limp prick and up his spine instead of the strain that spreads along his fucked rim.

Liam comes down close, sliding down beside Zayn with a sticky abdomen and warm skin when it brushes along Zayn's elbow.

And it's complete silence, nothing but sirens a few stories down. Busy streets that are beginning to burn out with the sun and the air breaks with the way Liam groans.

"I wasn't going to do that."

Zayn cranes his neck to the side, meeting Liam halfway with a manic grin sticking to his lips like coated gloss. "Shag me?"

Liam stays quiet, pressing his lips together when he hums. "Was gonna make you wait."

Zayn snorts, pressing his chin into Liam's shoulder and leaning in close to his ear, his lips rough along the lobe.

"How'd that turn out f'r you?"

 

 

===

 

 

The morning sun is like headlights in the highway of a sky that is this side of the planet.

Bright and blasting like strobe lights in all of Louis' favorite nightclubs while the silence is deafening. Warm skin under thin sheets and Zayn feels a surge of deja vu run through his blood like ecstasy or something a lot more unpleasantly humerous. A bed that knows him too well and a sunken indent beside him where-

He sits up, crinkling his nose and yawning into a faint calling he doesn't mean for.

His thighs are slightly sore and he doesn't focus in too much on that. Instead he runs a hand through his loose, fucked hair, jagged edges that could slice paper or the fragile stitching of pillow cases. His legs are bare and so is everything else, a neatly folded pile of his clothes at the end of the bed. His boots stacked right beside them and he panics. Not as harshly as the first time, but his heart thumps a little faster, his senses come too a little quicker and he gulps down a quick swallow worth of regret just before the door creaks to his left and-

His eyes drag up along Liam's damp frame. A cloud white towel wrapped around his waist with his hair flicking water droplets all over the carpet. His belly button is a tornado of wet hairs that stick to his stomach.

Zayn shifts, palming his dick shamelessly through the sheets and gnawing at his lip when Liam grins, wiping it away into his wet shoulder.

"Happy t' see me, love?" Liam wonders, standing still but shifting under his feet and Zayn nods, not giving the question the slightest bit of thought and he hates how Liam does that, but he won't show the least bit of aggravation while he's vulnerable in these foreign sheets.

"Thought you zipped out or summat." Zayn admits when Liam runs a hand through his soaked hair, long strands that are beginning to curl along with the air.

"N'd leave you by yourself wondering why I never said goodbye?" Liam wonders, humorously, but Zayn still feels a twinge of guilt flicker in his stomach.

"M'not you, Zayn." Liam teases, running a hand up his wet chest and Zayn-

"Pin it," he waves off, leaning back on his elbows to watch from a more comfortable view.

Liam raises a brow, following his eyes, "like what you see?"

Zayn snorts, flicking his eyes away to attempt a squint out the bright window at the front of Liam's room. Snowflake white walls that match the sheets. Light grey curtains that match the smoke from Zayn's last cigarette. Puffy Lucky Strikes outside of Charlie's with too much crushing anger and grief to keep trapped in his chest.

And now he's just-  _here_.

(Which is personally better than anything he's ever known.)

"The client is actually a male model on the side? Say Calvin Kleins and trench coats?" Liam comes close, dipping onto the mattress and nudging into Zayn's neck, wet.

"Wouldn't go that far, Li," he squints, tilting his head away from chocolate eyes and scarlett lips mixed in with water droplets. Stringy hairs that scratch up Liam's jaw. Zayn lifts his chin, trying to get away, away, away, but Liam's giggling down at him.

"What was that?" Liam wonders, teasingly, pressing his palms into Zayn's, pinning him like nothing and Zayn fights, barely. But it's no use.

"C'mon,  _Zaynie_ , what was that?" Liam urges, a wide smile that Zayn falls into. The way Liam's eyes squint and the small crevice like lines sketched into his cheeks pop.

Zayn stays quiet, blinking up at Liam through webby lashes and his kiss is forced, out of nowhere that catches Zayn off guard. The way Liam slots his lips against his, nearly sucking the life out of him. But it's such a minty mixture of taste and this pure smell of ginger body wash and a spritz or two of aftershave that wind up Zayn's senses and he kisses back, swiping his tongue along Liam's bottom lip and sucking him down, wrestling him to the side and burying his nose into Liam's neck.

He sucks, like a vampire, at the skin there. Bringing himself back and nudging his chin along Liam's chest, kissing at the closest nipple and he swipes his tongue out to draw a giddy squeal out of Liam.

It works and Zayn sits up when Liam clears his throat, suddenly like ' _that's where I draw the line, freak_ ' but it isn't  _that_ , it's more like-

"So I've got this publishing party coming up next week." He says, beaming his eyes down while Zayn nestles himself into Liam's side. Pressing his right arm along his stomach and poking his fingertips into the side of his ribs.

"Yeah?" Zayn wonders, ignoring the way his dick brushes along Liam's thigh and- fuck, he'd like nothing better than to just nut off on Liam's face one more time, but-

"N'd you're, uh, you're definitely invited because you're the cover designer n'd all." Liam nods, sure of himself, tracing patterns into Zayn's shoulder when he slips his arm around.

"Right, right." Zayn clears his throat, "definitely a big role in your success."

"Exactly," Liam says, softly, chuffed. "So you'll come? It's semi formal, so, erm."

Zayn swallows, bobbing his adam's apple and sniffling into the ''course I will, babe" that drips off his tongue between his next messy snog to Liam's lips.

 

 

===

 

 

The office is pitch dark the following Friday night.

Nothing but Zayn's flickering desk lamp as is spits out wires of light, projecting sight onto his thin sliced paper. Light sketches beneath his fingertips that fade away with the stars and leave smudges along his skin. A rubbish bin full of crumpled up paper and not enough hand pencil sharpeners to last him until three in the morning.

And the draft he comes up with between his exhausted blinking and yawning he can't exactly ignore, is, well, messy. But he'll fix it up and make it acceptable and beautiful and something that isn't Simply bland.

Because Liam's partly his motivation and a little bit more, too.

 

 

===

 

 

"What would you do without me?" Caroline's voice booms Saturday afternoon when she finally manages to stop by with a box full of Tom's old office slacks and coats.

Her voice is soft, comforting and expanding like sweet tarts along a prep slab. Candy lips and determined eyes as she barrels forward, hips at a sway. Fingers tied behind her back, fiddling with her jacket zipper and tugging it down, finally. Head tilted as she swings herself around the corner and presses her nose into the crook of Zayn's neck, soft hands along his back that pat him softly. Some comforting burden he doesn't hate himself for calling, but he's pretty close.

His tongue dips out to wet along his split lips, cracked and dry and it's too arid for his flat mid-day. Eyes sunk shut as he inhales apple cinnamon and honey.

"I'd die," Zayn mutters, dramatically, drawing a giggle out past Caroline's lips when she scratches her nails up behind his ears. Like a dog.

"That's f'r sure, darling." She nods, backing up slightly and turning her head to look for-

"Zee!"

His eyes divert away from Caroline, vision locked, traced up along small clattering shoes slapping against his chipped, wooden floor. A pink, striped skirt that hangs low along her tiny legs, one arm up while the other clutches a bear to her 'rockstar' t-shirt. Something glamorous with sparkles and every shade of pink known to eye. Plastic bracelets that jingle, line up her arms and makes her look exactly like her mother. Big, brown eyes wide as they pin to Zayn, a smile like sunshine as it takes up half of her face and leaves her a giggling mess all the way to his ankles because she's  _that_  speedy.

Brooklyn.

"Zee,  _Zeeeeee!_ "

She presses her forehead just under Zayn's left knee, two hands wrapped around his leg with small finger clutched into the material like eagle talons. Contagious smiles when she lifts her chin to stare up at him.

"Alright, babe?" Zayn wonders, cherry and red-cheeked because it's been a solid month since he's appreciated Brooklyn's heart warming smile, her outrageous giggles and comical sass that Caroline swears she picked up from Louis but Zayn begs to differ.

Brooklyn nods her head, keeps her eyes pinched together with gaping lips. Clicking her tongue to the roof of her mouth. Two missing teeth that Zayn raises a brow at because-

 _Wow_ , he's been absent.

"She's been up since six this morning asking when we'd catch the tube here," Caroline shakes her head, a fond grin printed to her lips as she smiles down at her daughter.

"A right sap for the Zee, eh?" Zayn jokes, something a lot like joy tugging at his lips.

"Think she just fancies your gifts, lad," Caroline nods, spins on her heel until she's reversed, rummaging through her box of fitting clothes high speed.

"That isn't true, is it, Brooky?" Zayn asks, bowing his head to meet Brooklyn's cork brown eyes.

She smiles up at him, shakes her head into his leg and Zayn nods, convinced.

"Knew it." He mumbles, reaching down and patting along her frizzy hair. Springy and loose and  _everywhere_. No match for the tight, neon headband taped past her ears. A color Zayn isn't a fan of, but he respects the way it matches her lemon skin shoes.

(All because Caroline was built to style and that's exactly why she's here now.)

She's young and full of life and positivity and Zayn can't help but melt whenever she mispronounces his name. Something just short of the right syllables but he doesn't mind because she loves him for  _him_  and not his simplistic name. The title he sort of maybe hates because it sounds daft rolling off of his own tongue and maybe even more so off of all of his friends.

Or just assholes like Niall when he's drunk or-

"Zayn Malik, you're a fuckin' idiot f'r leaving your door open when you know I'm in the neighborhood-"

And Zayn's groggy morning officially sinks lower into his skin and punches him hard once Louis swings around his hall corner. Quick enough so that he's plopped onto Zayn's free couch before any of them can fully take in his presence.

He reeks of cheap wash-off cologne Zayn swears is _his_  because he won't ever wear the toxic fragrance his mum somehow keeps sending his way every Christmas. A small note attached, precise handwriting but that's where Zayn gets it all from. A sigh brushing his lips every time he reads over the same note-

' _bigger and better because ya' can never smell too good, my lovely sunshine. x_ '

How heart warming.

He's dressed in some off the rack adidas joggers he's too famous for owning, cheap sneakers that Zayn swears are handme-downs, but ' _no one's looking down there, Zayn. No fashion sense, I swear-_ '

"How many times have I told you to watch your filthy mouth when my child is about!" Caroline yelps from the center of the room, sucking in a frill gasp.

"Dunno, babe, 've run out of fingers." Louis sneers, presses his chin to his shoulder, tugging his baggy Nike sweatshirt down along his torso, his eyes widening once he realizes-

"Don't tell me that-" He begins to speak, tilting his head to get a better view of- "Brookstone!"

Her head spins around and the light in her eyes is magnificent when she spots him. Palms off of Zayn's leather and a barreling jet towards her, vans scuffing up along the wood floor, outstretched arms as he scoops her up, giggles stacked with giggles until she's burying her nose into his neck. Small hands lost in his mess of hair, deep brown roots that curl, scrap in all directions. A mangled quiff in the front with Niall's hair gel and perhaps a little of Lottie's hairspray because Louis won't be caught dead purchasing a can in stores.

"How's me favorite little squirt?" He wonders, voice silly, playful as he props her back up on the sofa rest.

"Don't know what she sees in you that makes her so giddy," Caroline crosses her arms to her chest, knocks her chin towards Zayn with a brief eyeroll.

And he laughs a little bit, quiet as he stuffs his hands into his pockets and watches as Brooklyn claps her hands together.

"You're just jealous that she fancies a little bit of mischief." Louis hums, teasing with slits in his eyes like miniature canyons.

"Just like her uncle, yeah?" He wonders and Brooklyn nods with a smile, rosy cheeks as she reaches up to fiddle with Louis' nose.

"Oi, you got me, babe." He laughs, presses his finger to her nose and backs up once she's distracted by a misplaced tie Caroline's already began to lay out on the coffee table.

"My good  _god_ ," She breathes in, steps closer to her daughter and reaches a hand out to fix the clip to her shoes.

"Relax, would you Care Bear? Didn't think you'd be mucking about in me and my best mates buddy time." Louis scoffs when Brooklyn waddles over to her mother, pouting.

"I've got a dozen things to do today, Tomlinson. And putting my daughter through a youth correctional facility, isn't one of them." Caroline shakes her head, warning and  _stern_  if it had a picture in the dictionary.

"You're both awful," Zayn shakes his head, adjusting himself on the couch.

"Awful for helping my co-worker out with a bloke he fancies? Watch your tone, Malik, or I'll be off in a heartbeat." Caroline snaps her head up and now Louis is going to-

"Stripper lad?" He wonders, like an absolute idiot.

" _Liam_." Zayn corrects, "his name is  _Leeyum_."

"Right, knew that. Kraken lad, rather." Louis nods into his own recognition, squinting when he catches up. "Date or summat?"

"Launching party." Caroline corrects with an outstretched finger.

"You're wearing a tuxedo to a launching party?"

"A  _formal_  launching party." Caroline and Zayn say in unison, scoffing lightly.

Louis rolls his eyes, dramatically, kicking his feet up onto the coffee table. "A bit over the top, doncha think, Nancy boy?"

"Hush up! I think it's properly adorable." Caroline blushes, rushing to Zayn's defense while she flattens an old pair of midnight black slacks along her skirt.

"It's ridiculous." Louis says, convinced, turning his head to Brooklyn who's knocking her feet together and fumbling with the remote to Zayn's 40 inch screen. "S'ridiculous innit, Brookstone?"

Brooklyn cranes her neck, lifting a brow and chewing along her tongue.

"See, even the five year old knows you're all polished for no reason." Louis hums, obnoxiously while Caroline mutters to herself a few feet away. And Zayn knows that Louis is going to keep this running with something like-

"Unless Zayn's in lo-"

"Shove off it, Tommo." Zayn groan, "his family's gonna be there. n'd like-"

"And what, bro?" Louis asks, this mocking tone like he's so clever asking all of the most irritating questions and Zayn ignores him.

Caroline lifts her head at the silence, picking Zayn out with her eyes and flattening her hands over her skirt to rid of any new wrinkles between here and the front door. A proper mental case, but he loves her nonetheless.

"You. Up please." She orders, nodding with her chin and Zayn slumps up, letting his coat to lay on the couch he leaves behind.

"You've got some fitting to do, n'd god help me, you-" Caroline spins her head around to glare at Louis, "-will not get in the way of this session because this is  _important_."

Louis raises his hands, sliding his curvy hips off of the cushions and sighing into the way he taps at Brooklyn's shoulder. Her oblivious head swing as she searches for the cause of interruption, toothing at her lip when she looks up at Louis.

"C'mon, babe. Let's go vandalize a laundromat or summat." He snorts, taking her small hand between his and Caroline drops the coat and measuring tape scrunched in her fingers when she howls out an ear pitching-

"Louis William Tomlinson, you are an absolute terror!"

 

 

===

 

 

The hall is the size of Bradford High School gymnasium.

The floor is tiled like a fancy kitchen in some downtown five star restaurant. Sparkling under Zayn's onyx Polizellos. The ones that are particularly loose to his fitting and keep slipping up his heels because Caroline insisted she would make them fit when even a mannequin constructor knows damn well it's pointlessly painful. However, she's persistent, mumbling on about how ' _you will look posh for this boy because he's becoming something to you, I can see it in your eyes, love.'_  And Zayn thinks, well, she's bat shit. Not entirely because he doesn't hate the bubbly feeling in his stomach whenever Liam beeps him or every other description of what's supposed to be love scribed into his own head by his mum and silly children movies.

No, this is different. This divergent strum up against his heart like a harp. The flutter of Liam's eyelashes whenever he worries too much about his appearance. The way his coats fit or the fact that maybe his book is going to do absolute shit in this city even though Zayn knows Liam knows just as well as he pretends not to that he's going to do just fine.

"There you are."

Zayn's head lifts up at the voice. Liam's grin flashing from seventeen steps away with a white button up and dark wash jeans and those can't be his scuffed Timberlands but-

Oh no.

Zayn takes a glance down at his tuxedo. The fitting one with the velvet material that moans along his fingertips. Jet black and slightly worn, but you wouldn't be able to tell because Tom was precisely careful about ironing and Caroline stores a lint roller in her purse. But wait, this isn't-

"What're you wearing?" Liam wonders along Zayn's shoulder, his words flooding like poison in Zayn's senses because everyone's dressed down if not completley un-formal.

"You, uh, formal, right?" Zayn asks, although he knows it's too late for him to do anything, but Liam's red in the cheeks, on the verge of giggling and Zayn huffs.

" _Semi-formal_ ," Liam mutters, correcting into Zayn's ear, just loud enough for the both of them to hear.

Zayn slumps his shoulders, bending his knees and sniffling into an embarrassed whimper when Liam slides a gentle hand along his lower back, curling his fingers into a polyester side.

"No one will notice. Promise ya'" Liam says, comfortingly when he steps forward, guiding them through crowds of people. All street dressed with nice tops and clean shoes. The sort of outfits Niall has under his nursing outfit or the same sorts of clothes Louis bothers to dress in whenever the three of them plan a night out.

(Or rather just Louis because Zayn never tags along willingly.)

There's lamps hung high, bright bulbs that light up the painted ceiling and make the outside into an illusion of obsidian fog. It's the sort of gathering that reminds Zayn of Waliyha 16th birthday party a few years back. Strobes and spiked punch because he's the worst older brother in existence, but she covered for his uncalled for night outs for months after that. So he tucks that guilt away without memory anymore.

There's white tables and chairs with satin pads and Zayn nearly swallows his tongue when-

"If it isn't the asshole who writes a goddamn book about me and doesn't bother with a ring here and there."

The voice is shrill, sassy, followed by a blur of sangria red that wipes out Zayn's vision for a second or less. Her eyes like iced crystals and blue koolaid. Thin lips bolded with ruby lip liner and cheeks a blush of faded rose powder that Zayn matches to Safaa on her 12th birthday with a pad of makeup and neither of her sisters around to help her apply.

This is just a neater version.

"Nice t' see you too, Nicky." Liam grumbles, snorting into his shoulder when the girl comes closer, wrapping her arms around his neck and Zayn lets his arm fall loose. "And it was a chapter, christ."

She rolls her eyes, throwing her arms up and backing away a step.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever ya say, Li." She says, shaking her head with emphasize. "Was wonderin' when I'd find you lurkin' around. Ruthie's around her somewhere. Probably hung over at the bar with that fiance of hers." 

Her eyes drift and before he can duck or shimmy away for cover here glance crosses with his. 

"And who's this beautiful prince?" She wonders while Liam swallows rough, Zayn can see the uncertainty in his eyes and-

"His cover designer. Zayn." Zayn nods, reaching a steady hand out to shake.

The girl accepts, smiling pleasantly, "m'Nicola. This idiots sister."

"I can hear you." Liam warns from close by and Nicola grins, huffing out a breath of air.

"So, Cover designer?" She repeats, eyes wandering between Liam and Zayn, like she's examining them before she taps along her chin with acrylic nails. "That's the biggest load of shit I've heard since 2002."

"Bloody hell," Liam drags a hand up to scratch at his hairline, sucking in a harsh breath.

"Oh come on, you two might as well be off screwing with those heart eyes." Nicola busts, grinning manically and flipping her cranberry hair to the side. "Yeah, m'talking to you, dear."

Zayn gulps, helplessly, pocketing his fidgeting hands into his suit pocket and blinking rapidly when Liam reaches a hand out to guide him away.

"That's right! Hit the loo's Cheesy Head, shag until you're London's best top seller!" Nicola calls from behind them.

There's this passage of dim light between the following room. A water bubbler off to the side and Liam's tugging Zayn towards the empty hall with worry in his steps like-

"M'so sorry." He mumbles, throwing his fingers up to rake at his hair, gnawing at his lip.

"S'no bother." Zayn swears, shoving his hands into his pockets and watching people sway by just feet away.

"No, like, it is, 'cause there wasn't any need f'r that n'd I shouldn't have asked you to come, especially when this place is crawling with humiliation n'd-"

Zayn rolls his eyes,scraping his tongue along his molars before punching at Liam's chest lightly. "Just shut the fuck up, mate."

Liam swallows down his whole sentence, knitting his eyebrows together. Big and bushy brown, but they fit his forehead well and he looks dapperly fit in his  _semi formal_  dresswear.

"I know you're going to be a good sport about it n'd what not, but m'serious about-"

"Just," Zayn cuts off, craning his head to nuzzle into Liam's neck, breathing in the expected whiff of aftershave and his favorite cologne. Puckering his lips and letting his tongue lap gently at the skin under Liam's chin, right over his birthmark. The one he's irritated with, but the same one that Zayn finds himself admiring because it's just another part of this boy he's particularly obsessed with.

He backs up, kicking his heels out, "shut up."

Liam laughs, his chest vibrating into Zayn's palm and he backs up to a normal space.

"What did I do to end up with you?" He wonders suddenly, his grin subsiding along with the ring of humour in his voice.

Zayn's nose twitches and he sniffles, looking down at their shoes, lined up perfectly in this loo hallway with too many decorative plants to hide them both away.

And he doesn't answer right away because he doesn't feel like he needs to.

They both know this is this because Liam wrote a book and Zayn, well, he took Louis' advice.

(He took a chance.)

Not ' _shag all of her friends, mate_ ', because that was certainly number two on the list of options, but-

"Dunno," Zayn hums, soothingly. "But m'here."

 

 

===

 

 

"Liam James, you'd better hold it right there!"

Zayn's line of vision lights up and he doesn't recognize her at all. The woman barreling towards them twenty minutes later with thin wired glasses that fit her ears just right, and bright crimson lipstick that match Liam's nude lips. This thick strapped dress that cuts off at her knees and silver flats slipping along polished tile as she rushes over, balancing her glass of  champagne barley in her grasp. Sandy blonde hair that reaches barley to her shoulders and a smile that reminds Zayn a lot like-

"Hi, mum." Liam addresses, stepping up beside Zayn and letting his arm fall to swing it around his mother's neck, tugging her in briefly. She pinches her eyes shut, nearly squeezing tears out past her lightly applied mascara. And Zayn catches a glimpse of a grinning Nicola behind her shoulder that he blushes down at.

Not one part about this is intimidating, really. Zayn's just shit at controlling his dick and his mouth waters over the thought of Liam drilling him into a loo stall wall-

 _Fuck_. Not here.

"My little lion! It's so beyond me to see you, darling." She backs away after a few seconds and Zayn swallows an awkward cough, silently.

"I never guessed it would take a book to draw me to you, love. Here I was thinking the city would be awful for you and here you are, I'm just-" She squeals, pressing her index under her eye to wipe away a slither of a tear. Something barely there, but Liam sighs and Zayn traces his eyes along the tile under his feet.

"Don't start crying here, please." Liam pleads, some sympathy whittled into his words.

"I won't, oh  _goodness_ , I'm sorry. Am I embarrassing you in front of your friend?" Her eyes fall on Zayn suddenly and his breath catches roughly, like toxin, in his throat.

"This is Zayn, mum." Liam introduces, thinning out his lips like a bombs about to set off.

(Maybe one in Zayn's chest because he's so nervous and he can't pinpoint why, but-)

"Zayn? The cover designer, yes?" She wonders, scanning Liam for a sign which- well, he doesn't really give one at all and she's full on, wrapping her arms around Zayn's neck and tugging his collar close.

"The boyfriend." Nicola fake coughs, wetting her glossed lips and dodging the way Liam's mum swats at her.

"Hush up, you!" She scolds, shaking her head and turning back to Zayn, "It's lovely to meet the boy who's going to be selling me son's career!" She cries, ecstatic with dry eyes and Zayn's relieved, pulling away when she loosens her grip and Liam scolds her, quietly.

"Of course, same to you, er, Mrs. Payne." Zayn says, as sincerely as possible, eyeing Liam between her pauses because he looks so fucking embarrassed and Zayn reaches out to pinch his hip secretly.

"Oh, please. Call me Karen, darling." She waves her hand up, sipping on the rim of her glass.

"I'm sure you've already seen Ruth, yes?" Karen wonders, blinking over at Liam.

"Actually-"

"Couldn't have, mum. She's off in the loo shagging her man." Nicola interrupts, turning with an apologetic frown at Liam. "Sorry to burst your bubble, lads. Know you lot were looking forward to your reservation."

Liam tenses, breathing in hard through his nose and Zayn quirks his lip, pressing his thumb to the dip above Liam's arse, crinkling his fingerprint into the baggy shirt end there.

"Where are your manners? Awful!" Karen shakes her head, shamefully when Nicola disappears off into a huddling crowd with a sneer glossed onto her lips and a ' _m'only kidding, Li-bug! But your boyfriends fit as hell!_ ' sewn in barley with wandering conversations mixing it all up like a scrabble game on it's way back.

"She's only lashing out because she's a bit lonely, s'all." Karen explains, carefully while she pats at her sides, smiling up at Liam who's shaking his head.

"She loves you and she supports you." She adds, reassuringly. "So does that unbelivable other one who's going to be hearing from me later on-"

Zayn rolls his shoulders, glancing around at the swarm of new people huddled around them.

Liam's further away when he turns back. Not too close or far. Chatting up with some lad who looks a lot like a lion, thrown back hair, messy and golden over some posh suit. Zayn's stood, awkwardly, eyeing his bright surroundings when-

"I know you'll absolutely smash this cover, love." Karen says beside him, suddenly, out of nowhere but Zayn twiddles his thumbs and raises his brows at her, swallowing down his need to excuse himself.

He's  _fine_. This is  _fine_.

"He's always been the quiet kid, y'know. Never imagined he'd be off writing books and all that." She wipes a thumb up under her eyes, nudging her glasses slightly.

"Here I go again," she smiles, crinkling her eyes in a way Zayn finds so familiar-

"What I'm trying to get at is; I know you'll be good for him, dear." Karen nods, directing her eyes over at Liam who's ear to ear smiling at a new group of men. Middle Aged and still, not as dressed up as Zayn with his tie hung around his neck and-

"For business, of course." She adds, slicing his thoughts and he nods.

"Right,"

"And maybe," Karen begins, patting a hand softly up his shoulder, "fall in love in between coloring."

 

 

===

 

 

"So m'guessing it went well. Proper do, yes?" Caroline wonders Monday morning while she curls her thumb along the brim of her mug.

Eyes just as steamy as the fog rising along her morning citrus tea, eyebrows raised and tongue dipping out every now and then while she watches him from the doorway, tapping her heel into the carpet and sighing every time Zayn slumps lower into his chair.

The morning is (dreadfully) dawning. Drawing in the outside simmered brightness from London's typical grey sheet of clouds. The same ones that have hung over this city since the day he moved into his flat, (or maybe a long time before that) but maybe they're here for better reason. Clumpy and coal blurs that puff effortlessly along the already dim sky. Wilting plants in the coffee room because no one seems to want to offer up a bottle cap or two of water. Somber attitudes all around because yes, Monday is terrible your whole life no matter what instance and Zayn thinks he could simmer into nothing for the rest of his week.

"Come on, Malik. You've got to have more to say about it." Caroline prys, stepping forward and crossing her free arm across her stomach. "Did my styling do well at least?"

Zayn smirks, nodding down at his planted feet and flipping his pencil between his fingers.

"Would you say I'm obvious about, er-"

"Being head over heels for him?" Caroline cuts him off, squinting into her classical ' _you've got to be taking the piss?_ ' face she usually pulls at Louis whenever he steps in with the ' _I just hit an old bag, pardon me_ ' or the infamous ' _tripped down me stairs and had to call up Nialler_ ' he usually uses for every bullshit excuse that comes out of his mouth.

"Right, sorry, lovely. But yes." She winces, like she's bracing herself but Zayn just sinks lower.

"S'not your fault. You're just an emotional lad. Nothing else to it." Caroline adds, shrugging like it's no big deal but Zayn can't-

It's just  _so fucking hard_  for him to submerge himself back into a feeling this familiar, yet a feeling so distant and odd at the same second. He doesn't fancy shattered hearts and empty hallways with nothing but goodbyes to offer, flickering the light out with every last breath of admiration there ever was to exist. It's just- he doesn't want to say  _pointless_ , because it isn't entirely. It just feels that way when everything good is bound to come plummeting down like tower walls in all of his old favorite video games.

"Something to fret about?" Carine wonders, tapping her hot margarita nails along his desk, lingering like a motherly shadow he won't ever admit to adoring so much.

"No, s'just, er-"

"I see." Caroline thins her lips out when Zayn looks up, folding her eyes and letting her mug rest along the chipped wood of Zayn's desk, right atop his track pad because water rings are a number two nuisance on her list of bothersome things.

(Louis is number one, but that's no mystery.)

"You can't be afraid to open that big heart of yours, Zayn." She sighs, ruffling her fingers through the hair slicked to the back of his neck, still slightly damp from his morning rinse. "You've got time to be heartbroken and you've got time to sulk when you're seventy and your hair's falling out."

He winces at the words, tensing his shoulders and Caroline giggles, shrilly. "Sorry, love. Just a saying. You've got good roots, trust me."

That's better.

"But now," she continues, smiling admirably down at him when he blinks up at her with hooded eyes. "Now you've got to live. And that boy-"

She pauses, tapping along his shoulders while her lips purse in the reflection of his computer screen.

"He's living." She finishes, convinced she's made a breakthrough, but Zayn-

"Most humans are," he mouths, wisely and Caroline twists her hips to glare at him.

"M'trying to help you realize that not all love comes in cheap pick-up lines and Louis Tomlinson one night stands, Zayn." Caroline says, waving her finger, "which I'm sure you're aware of, but I'm just going to go at nailing it into your head that they're-"

"The best part about being twenty four?" Louis bursts, slinging his bag down along his chair once he arrives. Like the star of the show in some little league office downtown London.

"Tomlinson, you're-" Caroline begins, but, no-

"Late? No, no. Watson. I have Thursdays to sleep in." Louis shrugs, smugly, taking his seat and bumping his knees with his fists. "Take that."

Caroline crosses her arms, her eyes merely slits when she turns back to Zayn.

"Twenty three and three quarters." Zayn corrects, late, but Louis still flips him off behind Caroline's back.

"Anyway," she huffs, frustrated. "You've found something good for you, love. Don't toss it." She pleas, frowning dramatically, but Zayn mumbles a promise under his breath so she'll back up.

It's mid day decisions he doesn't have enough sugar in his blood to make use of, or rather even think of because these sorts of thoughts feel so foreign racketing around his head. It's like laser quest battles when he was 12 and obsessed with comics and crayons with Jawaad and all of Doniya's friends. Or maybe a bird cage of parrots and every other insufferably loud noise on the planet in such a deafening silence.

"Why on earth would Zayno toss his boyfriend? He's fit as all hell." Louis blurts and Caroline slumps her shoulders, humming in small reassuring breaths that keep her heart strums on course or otherwise (Zayn knows from personal experience) she'll throw punches at Louis and call him an ' _unbelievable terror_ ' until he'd deaf in every term. 

"Do me a favor, Zayn." Caroline clicks back towards the entrance of this small little office. The one the size of your typical celebrity walk in closet.

"Don't ever take love advice from that dolt."

 

 

===

 

 

The idea is stupid and Zayn's one hundred percent against it-

The invitation for Liam to join the three of them while Louis attempts at a good, clean fuck playing it dirty and while Niall gets wasted because he's picking up more shifts and that's ' _a bucket load of stress, lads! 'Ve barely got any time t' wank off anymore for Christ sakes_.' According to him and maybe he's pushing it slightly because he knows Louis is going to answer with some wise ass comment like ' _could always toss it in the nursery. Baby's won't have a clue-_ ' and then Harry's going to end up slapping him on the wrist for being ' _fuckin' terrible! They're babies!_ ' And Zayn's going to order a vodka cola and pray Liam doesn't block him out of his life.

(Because all of this will go down hill and that's a promise to Zayn's conscience.)

However, Zayn's nuzzled into Liam's side comfortably while Louis pokes fun at Niall from across the circular booth. Teasing him over his obsession with Mariah or Malaya, or the pretty bird with the glasses and the pony tail he won't talk to much about because he knows his cheeks are going to light up like January first and the teasing won't stop too soon either.

Liam's thumbing light patterns into the dip in Zayn's lower spine and he sinks into the bather back and forth, effortlessly.

Plus it's been twenty minutes and it's going quite well, Zayn thinks.

All up until Harry returns from the loo, sliding into the cushions beside Louis and elbowing him with a wink, leaning in a little too close and Zayn doesn't have time to raise a brow because-

"So this is him, then?" Harry wonders, scanning his eyes up Liam's button up. Black and white buttons that make his skin reflect tan even when the sun says otherwise, popping his eyes like roasted chestnuts and he looks posh if not fancy. Snug with his collar buttoned all the way up and Zayn wishes he could take him into the loo, bolt the door shut and just-

"Yeah, er," Liam stutters, gnawing at the inside of his cheek, nervously. Skittishly.

"The book guy." Louis shoulders into Harry, signaling a clue into his veins.

"Right! Of course, proper legend." Harry nods, because he's so good at pretending to be interested. "Saw the sketch for the cover, mate. Sick stuff. You're lucky to have Zayn working on it for you."

Zayn can feel his cheeks fire up, his palms pinch and he nudges his neck to the side when Liam leans close.

"I'd hope it is. He's taking a goddamn year." Liam giggles, scratching at Zayn's spine through his shirt.

"He's a precise lad. Good about that shit." Niall nods, reassuring in a way and Zayn sinks into his cushion, melting.

"Yeah, a complete slob when he's wasted though, so watch out f'r that." Louis knocks his chin, ignoring the way Zayn flips his middle up when Liam turns his head.

"Yeah, reckon you're the one taking him home and such." Harry shrugs, turning to face Louis like he's looking for approval. The set up to his next joke and Zayn squints, suspicious.

"Because the tables have turned and now Zayn's the prostit-"

"That's enough," Zayn sits up, clenching his jaw when the three of them burst into giggles, Liam included when he nudges his nose into the crook of Zayn's neck. Warmly. 

Muttering a quiet, "just a laugh, babe."

And he relaxes, instantly, oddly like- well,  _fuck that_  because he shouldn't need a four letter sentence to bring him back down to earth but it's-

 _Electrifying_. New. And it works just as smoothly as a lit fag between his lips when the world is too busy ignoring him. 

"Only taking the piss, Zaynster. Sure this fella knows how much of a blast you are." Louis swears, raising his hands from his bottle and scratching at the light stubble beginning to line his jaw. Humming into Liam's shoulder so he won't be able to hear the vile ' _right firecracker in the sheets as well, but m'sure you already knew that, Liam,_ ' Louis adds in, sneering, afterwards. 

And Zayn can feel the wandering finger that presses light dots into his thigh, the thumb that slips into his palm and swirls smooth circles into the soft skin. Something soon enough like a warm handshake during frost bitten December nights Zayn doesn't want to have to think about until he's dishing out pounds to a thermostat. Not yet. Not while he's got blankets and snuggies and a little bit of Liam here and there who keeps him warm just fine.

"Speaking of a blast," Louis continues, raising his eyebrows and sipping along his bottle rim. "You like jello shots, Liam?"

Liam straightens his lips out, tilting his chin with a steady hum of "yeah," that rolls with his tongue like ocean currents or the silent crashing of pond ripples against mucky shores.

"Brilliant! Then you'll be over f'r me birthday, then?" Louis wonders before Zayn can shovel Liam out of the booth and he-

Well, he doesn't panic because not every do Louis has hosted in the past has gone tragically wrong. There's been minor issues like slivered birthday cake because Stan is blind and for the time being, absolutely knackered from his day trip down from. All the way from deep Doncaster and fuck, that's a haul. Or maybe the time Eleanor ended up shagging Dan in Louis' master bathroom in between crisp pie and the Hallmark Christmas special from 7-5 the next morning because Louis' is blessed enough to lign up his birth date with the most holy day in the year. (Which is ironic, because he's quite the opposite of holy, but-) Zayn can remember Loads of screeching and a few slamming doors later until it was as simple as ' _m'going out to Charlie's, keep them company_ ' to Zayn and Niall as Louis nodded, like a spoiled prat at his left behind mates and snuck out rather obnoxiously, through his creaking front door.

So maybe- no, this is  _definitely_ a horrible idea.

"Er, I guess I could-" Liam begins and Zayn holds his breath, worrying like an idiot, but he knows it's bound to happen either way, so he doesn't really fight it when Harry shoves his typical ' _it's loads of fun,_ ' which is a lie. And then the classical, ' _Lou's an ace cook, mate,_ ' which is, well,  _also_  a lie. 

"You've gotta come, dude. You're like, one of us now." Niall snorts, obliviously and something stunts Zayn's next heartbeat.

A twinge of  _nothing_  behind his ribs he can't comprehend, but the relaxing simmer that follows is promising and it sweeps him into his acceptance.

Maybe it won't be an inevitable tragedy with Liam and his scuffed up Timberlands, knocking his hips at Zayn through every soon to come argument because ' _you're worth every bit of it, babe_ ,' Liam swore through his receiver later that first night with his Kraken rum and the taste of spice on the tip of his tongue.

"Yeah," Harry nods, smirking, "one of us."

And they all fall into this hum of silence that Zayn overthinks to oblivion, sucking down his uncertainty and replacing it with comfort, or tranquility, or  _both_.

This calm sequence of 'you're in the clear' while some Katy Perry tune beats through the speakers above their heads. Not enough air or lighting, but everything's beginning to blur perfectly in this alignment and Zayn doesn't complain.

"Heads up, lads." Niall lifts his chin suddenly, low-key winking at the bird who comes close from behind them, swinging her hips like it's all she's got and Zayn sighs into Liam's neck because normality of conversation never lasts. 

"M'sorry for what's about to happen." He mutters, shamefully while Liam blinks down at him curiously.

Harry coughs, snorting into his elbow and Zayn blinks a long while into Liam's shoulder, huffing in small scents of  _him_ \- (his favorite new scent) and cigarette smoke he blames himself for.

"Oh, whoopsie-daisy." Harry blurts, standing to his feet and swaying his hips out to nudge the girl slightly.

She swings around, narrowing her eyes and huffing angrily until she meets Harry's gaze and it's like she falls under a spell. (a right charmer on the outside, but nothing but a prick with lizard long socks and a keychain collection on the inside.)

"Hi there," she grins, puckering her lips, flirtatiously and Louis steps up, leaning in close to Harry with a grin on his lips, pinching at his hips and-

Harry stays quiet, blinking lazily and- something's wrong, but Zayn can't pinpoint it just yet.

"Oh, this is my best mate Louis." Harry mumbles, finally, not moving, keeping his boots stuck into the wooden flooring and smuggling a grin across his lips.

"Er, hi." The girl raises an eyebrow, unsure and hesitant as she switches leaning on either of her feet.

"Hi." Louis repeats, resting his head barely above Harry's shoulder, like he's fond of him more than a-

Oh.

 _Oh_.

And it's nothing, no, just smug smiles between the three of them. This completley pointless confrontation that can only crash and burn and Zayn almost labels himself psychic when the girls eyes squish up and she flips her hair over her shoulder. 

"Okay, bye?" She girl snorts, shouldering past Harry and Liam's squinting at Zayn questioningly like 'explain maybe?'

He ignores him, watching the way Niall's lips prop open and the way his eyes pop glossy and wide. Disbelieving.

"No fucking way." He blurts the second Louis is sliding in next to Harry. "That was weak!"

Zayn sighs, exhaling lightly and pressing his head back along puffy booth cushions.

"Guess m'losing my spark." Harry shrugs, lazily, quirking his lips like nothing and Niall's still hysterical, raising his arms up in defense and blubbering on about how this is the most pathetic thing he's witnessed since some derby track race in the Spring of 2013.

And Liam's nudging his nose along Zayn's temple, whispering daft guesses at his shampoo type along the shell of his ear while the world speeds up around them. A few ' _lemon citruses?_ ' that Zayn snorts at, quietly while Liam hums into his next guess. Something like ' _Rizzi?_ ' or ' _ginger vitamin._ ' That he shakes his head at until he forgets the brand himself.

(And Zayn thinks, rather sappily, shampoo scents will be the smile on his face until he's dead asleep and dreaming about-

-yeah, he'll admit it now;  _tomorrow_.)

 

 

===

 

 

"Zayn this is-"

"Shit?"

Liam laughs, biting at his tongue and running a hand up through his wall, ocean wave bent quiff. Mouth wide and stretched because he's  _observing_  but Zayn can't be certain he's  _loving_. Not when he's so good at making everyone feel like a superstar and sucking every last genuine emotion out past his features. No, he's chewing at his lip now while his eyes scan over the paper in his lap. The hard board design Zayn can't help but hate until he hears otherwise. Liam  _is_  that otherwise. Because ' _it's important to know what your customer wants, that way you will get far in your business_.' Or some financial saying like that with his father slurring into the phone last Christmas. 

And even though Caroline takes on every challenge thrown his way, (no, he's not incapable like most lads in the industry, it's her job as his employer-) he's key on this. Knowing. Knowing whether he's nothing but a brainstorm and his sketches get tossed along with every doodle Louis has ever come up with out the back door and into some overly sized bin the whole editing house laughs at once the week is over with.

Though somehow his imagination is fucking ridiculous and he's fretting like a dipshit while Liam looks over  _his_  design for  _his_  book.

Or the rough draft, because that'll buy more time if the sky comes crashing down around him and Liam-

"No, I love it, man, like-"

Okay, so, maybe not horrible?

"Knew I would n'd all, but you're so talented, Zayn." Liam gushes, like Zayn's teachers throughout all of his schooling. Endless compliments he was never sure to take as sympathy or just genuine appreciation, but either way- "Like, you know that, yeah?"

Zayn shrugs, rocking back on his heels, scratching at his thighs through his sweats and quirking his lip at the model pinched between Liam's fingertips. He's sinking into Zayn's couch, blinking back and forth between the draft and Zayn and the low t-shirt he has loose around his neck.

The morning is quiet, barely audible raindrops as they slide down Zayn's window and drip onto the pavement a long way down. The light is dreary and there aren't as many car horns or traffic considering the occasion. A travel day before ThanksGiving and it's a relief in a way Zayn doesn't entirely notice, but it's enough. Just the silence and Liam while he itches at his neck from where his scarf was previously wrapped, thumbing at his lip and setting down the cover before sitting up.

"Took me longer than usual, so m'sorry, but if you're cool with that I can put it through?" Zayn wonders, his knees creaking and Liam's looking up at him with fondness in his eyes and something else Zayn can't name right off the second.

"It's brilliant, babe, like the Batcave floor plans. Put it through." Liam urges, lightly, forgetting to fight the smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth.

"Batcave floor plans," Zayn repeats, giggling helplessly, pressing his teeth down hard on his tongue when Liam's cheeks flush magenta.

"Yeah, babe. That  _sick_." Liam retorts, adoringly, not even flinching when Zayn angles himself on the sofa arm. Uncomfortable and lumpy on his arse, but he sinks into this atmosphere so well it's like he's in the clouds.

"Sick like Harry Potter?" Zayn wonders, teasingly when Liam reaches up to pinch at his hip, crinkling his eyes and nose and he looks-

Like an Ewok without the fur and snarl. Beady brown eyes and plump lips that thin out with every gaping cackle.

"Course.  _Better_." Liam swears, tilting his head back and flipping his face sideways to look up at Zayn.

It's this burst of completion that swivels through his bloodstream and weigh heavy on his brain. Too heavy and he's contemplating too much, too fast. Like the reasons Liam has to stick around and maybe he isn't enough. Like the world is still moving and it's not stopping anytime soon for Zayn to air out his head.

"Hard t' believe I've finally gotten this done, right? Now ya can stop hangin' around." He shrugs, suddenly, bowing his head and masking it all up with a small smile.

Liam's smirk fades along with his silly posture, straightening his spine out and narrowing his eyes, concerned like.

"What?"

Zayn sniffs, scratching patterns into his thigh. "You're like- you don't have to keep, erm,"

Liam stays quiet, picking at the loose frays along the cushions of Zayn's couch pillows. His eyes loose as the knock around the room and Zayn barely feels him when he palms up his leg, poking circles into his knee cap with a reassuring, "m'not going anywhere," that hangs along his lips like a miracle Zayn should have seen coming.

And then the "promise ya," Liam hums after, uncertainly stranded into his pronunciation that Zayn doesn't find horribly sudden or uncalled for but his heart shakes either way and he absorbs into it all too sweetly.

 

 

===

 

 

"You'll remember to lock the doors then, mate?"

Zayn blinks up from his dusty table, a flickering light with his laptop sided off to the corner. Flickering a time like 10 pm or maybe it's ten past 12. Somewhere along there and he's barely noticed, which isn't new. Sketching away pointlessly and waiting for well- nothing. He's got a night full of stars and he's already submitted Liam's design into Caroline's folder with the rest of his 'beautiful work!' According to herself and he, slowly, begins to think better of himself with every buzz from Liam after his reassuring , 'got it in.'

Texts like, -best partner in crime ever!!!! Were like superheroes together, but ur me sidekick sorry don't make the rules ;D

And the one right afterwards.

-I'm kidding babe, no more jokes don't wana b to nerdy for ya xx :X

And then the one where Zayn locks his phone because he knows how this works and he knows how these conversations go. The boyfriend/girlfriend type where he won't be able to get enough and, fuck, maybe he's already too deep but Liam's definitely just-

An excuse. Right now.

"Zayn? You there, bro?" Louis snaps his fingers from their office door and Zayn sniffs, nodding his head.

"Yeah, here." He mutters, softly, not lifting his eyes.

But then-

"I'll um- I'll go. I reckon. No use sitting here and-"

"What is it, Louis." Zayn wonders, allowing his pencil to droop past his fingertips and role along his paper. Louis' eyes like glossy orbs that light up on Halloween. Bright and revealing and-

"Well, it's like this, see-"

"You're in love with him." Zayn nods, convincing himself and maybe Louis just in case he needed that. 

There's this look of fear in his eyes like he's faced with some villain of emotion as big as a title wave or slithering as snakes and insects he can't bat away with his massive ego.

And Zayn's never seen him like this.

"No!" He shakes his head, projecting his voice like nightclub speakers and Zayn won't isolate him with a smirk he knows he's capable of. This is odd in every definition and-

"M'not, we've just been hanging around a whole lot and he's-"

"Worth more than a wingman?" Zayn wonders and Louis stays quiet gnawing at his lip. Nervous and jittery and a fucking mess.

"Shit, Zayn." Louis exasperates finally, a breath that takes a decade in time and maybe a little more, spilling past his lips while he pushes his hair far above his forehead with his left hand, adjusting his sweater neck with his right.

"It's happening, mate. I can actually feel me heart swelling up. S'like the Grinch, dude." Louis says, panicky, while Zayn can't help the way he grins down at his lap.

"S'not funny, you try falling for someone. It's horrible." Louis shakes his head.

"For you." Zayn points out, effortlessly, tugging at his sleeves.

"But you're different, Malik. You can hold the walls up. I'm just riding solo." Louis holds his hips, swaying lightly to distract himself.

"Were." He corrects, propping his chin up.

"Asshole." Louis clenches his jaw and Zayn hums, humorously.

"Whatever. I'll get over it. He's just sick at giving head. That's all." Louis swears, adding into this fake reassurance that maybe he's not a sucker for romance after all.

(He totally is.)

"That's definitely it." Zayn agrees, a hint of sarcasm flickering off his tongue and underlining his sentence.

"And he's got a dick crafted from the fuckin' gods like-"

"Alright." Zayn holds his hand up, surrendering this every word he doesn't want to hear. "Don't wanna know about your bedroom rendezvous."

Louis stays quiet, ticking his grin away because his world is crashing down around him and-

"M'going to go get trashed. Remember t'lock up." He announces, halfway out the door.

"Right, yeah. No bother." He mumbles, sinking into the relaxing motion of Louis' footsteps disappearing down the main hall and to the lifts.

He's lost in his sketching, pointless, but it's a time consumer that he finds amusing and calming and it's not sleep, so that's better. No time for him to pick away at his own head and convince himself everything is wrong because it isn't. That's just- his own form of torture he falls victim to every good day now and then.

His fingertips are smudged with graphite streaks and he gawks down at the silly comic. Not him. Not Liam. Not Harry or Niall, or Louis. Just the city skyline and a faded out group of lads kicking at the air.

There's a creaking door down the hall, suddenly and Zayn sits up, sweeping eraser shavings from his space and sitting up.

"Forget your visa, dipshit?" He calls, ready to face Louis and all that is his peculiarly hilarious identity crisis.

"Left mine at me flat, actually."

Zayn's head stays afloat above his shoulders, flickering eyes through this faded light that can barely trace out Liam's figure but he's stood, leaned up against the door with his cheek smoothed into the wood and his long coat draped over his arm. Dark and blending in with the background and Zayn sighs, pleasantly. His hair is a wreck, flipped in every direction and Zayn squints, confused.

"Thought you were-"

"Louis? Saw 'im on the way out." Liam explains, lifting a brow. "Didn't look too happy."

Zayn shrugs, rolling his shoulders. "He's never happy."

"I reckoned so." Liam nods, thumbing at the door handle and knocking his head lightly against some past day calendar.

There's a quiet like suffocating earmuffs in Winter silence. Faint slow flakes that brush bashfully along sealed windows. Streaking frosty patterns into chiseled material.

"What're you doing here?" Zayn wonders finally, tracing patterns up his thigh.

Liam steps forward, his hands shoved into his pockets. "Dunno, really. Thought I'd ask you about Christmas Eve since it's your mates birthday n'd all, but then I just decided, I just like-"

Zayn smirks, his lips avoiding a quiver and that sliver of awkward question contaminating his expression.

"Missed you?" Liam offers, shifting stiffly.

"You saw me few days ago, babe." Zayn says, quietly, wetting the roof of his mouth with his tongue and sucking it out past his teeth because he's concentrating hard on Liam's words and the way he blinks and twists his hips.

"Yeah I know, I just-" he cuts off, "I was just getting worked up at me flat n'd I started thinking about you."

Zayn sneers, as unnoticeably as possible. "So ya got kitted all the way up so you could come and see me in person?"

Liam nods, blushing, "yeah." He snorts, kicking his heel back. "Lame, but I knew you'd be here n'd-"

"You thought you'd come by and shag me?" Zayn wonders, the words dying along the air and Liam fades out into a magenta color.

"Office sex? I took you as more of a professional." Liam sucks his lip in, kicking his heel back at the door and the shutting sound has blood flowing rapidly into Zayn's pulsing dick.

"Did you? Sorry,then." Zayn hums, dragging his eyes up Liam when he stands, Eskimo kissing with sugar lips hardly an inch from his. Rubbing the tips of his shoes along Liam's and sliding his pointer along his waist band. Digging into the fabric and pressing softly into Liam's meaty hip.

He shivers, sniffling and puckering his lips. Exhaling roughly. "Just full of misunderstandings, I reckon."

Zayn inhales, kissing up along Liam's jaw.

"Won't argue," he whispers, low.

"Of course not. You're such a good lad," Liam hums, tilting his neck back.

"Yeah?" Zayn wonders, hushing his voice along the scruffy hair that lines Liam's jaw line.

Tracing his nose into a coffee stained birthmark with hints of cinnamon swirl.

"Can be pretty naughty too."

It's those words that set Liam off, like a fucking fire alarm in every building of this street. Twisting himself around and grasping Zayn's neck with his fingers, bending him easily and he smirks into the position he's bent into.

"C'mon, babe. Let me have it." He eggs Liam on,  burying a grin into his elbow when he's spent back over his desk, Liam's clothed chest pressed to his spine while he kisses up Zayn's warm neck.

"Think-" Liam mutters, kissing wetly along the nape of Zayn's neck. "Think this one's me favorite."

He's talking about the tattoo, the silver fern Zayn got some day between the Winter of 2012 and the Spring of 2013. The one particular inked in design he can't see regularly, but enjoys the most. Blindly,, while lads like Liam gloss over the pattern with his lips.

(or just Liam because Zayn's plummeting deeper and deeper into this hole of-

-something he can't  name just yet.)

And Zayn grinds his prick along the ridged wood, through his slacks with his keys jingling in his pocket and his belt buckle shimmying around his waist. Liam's hands pressed firmly into the desk while he presses the curve of his stiff clothed prick along the curve of Zayn's crack. Grunting quietly in Zayn's ear with lips spilling filthy nothings into the air like toxic gas.

"Ever since that night I've been itching to bend you over just like this," Liam groans low, sitting up while he runs his warm hands up the back of Zayn's t-shirt. "Fuckin' you like a dog, mate."

Zayn vibrates a sound out past his lips, grinding his teeth and reaching down, slowly, to loosen the leather holding him up.

Liam's past that, tugging his jeans down and squeezing at his fat dick through his briefs, a sight Zayn can barely catch through the vortex of a laptop he's left open. A sticky spot just below the outline in Liam's boxers and Zayn's stomach aches along with his own cock, twitching, restrained.

"Fuck, Li," Zayn breathes, curling his toes in his Tartans, scuffed up and knocking into his desk legs. "Just-"

"Get it out already, I know how you get, 've gotcha'" Liam whimpers something a lot like a promise and it settles well like samosas at Midnight with cola and a little bit of himself to fall deep asleep to.

Zayn stays quiet, counting his pulse beats while wet slaps echo around his office and grabby fingers stick into his jeans, shimmying them down, down, down. Rough by the cuffs and Liam doesn't bother with the boots and the tight ankles.

He's got a firm hand, cupping Zayn's cheek and strapping his finger at the elastic waistband of his boxers. "M'obsessed with this view is that bad?"

Zayn flicks his tongue along his teeth, rolling his eyes around with closed lids and purring into his wrist. "Bet it'd be better with-"

"Right, yeah." Liam hushes his words, spilling them like milk and sopping wet biscuits Zayn's ended up devouring too much half of his childhood. Sprawled out on his twin mattress with X-men sheets and a pair of baggy sweats with a pitcher of orange juice and a slight obsession with comic books.

His dick is slick, the way it brushes up against the curve of Zayn's arse, spitting out blobs of pre-cum on the small of his back. Hot in the moment, but the draft catches on his skin and he shivers.

"Need some-"

"No." Zayn cuts off, his knees buckling beneath him. Pinning his hearing on the sound of Liam's bomber slacking jacket against the wood floor.

"Sure? I c'n like-" Liam wonders, circling his head against Zayn's rim and it's so-

 _Fuck_ , he's groaning like a ship siren and he's melting into his desk, like a liquid. His atoms converting and his bones cracking and Liam's sinking forward without word or not and maybe Zayn will stay silent just like this.

Forgetting every late night priority with him, his laptop screen and the slow hum of warped Kanye slow tunes the radio station blasts when they know no one is listening. 

"Gonna go f'r it." Liam announces, quietly and Zayn pinches his eyes shut, focusing on the glare of Liam in the reflection of his dimmed computer screen. The incredible pinch between his legs he doesn't make a sound at. barely a whimper, but he soaks into the way Liam shifts, the way his brow is shimmering in the screen and the way his lips part, teeth white while they clap down. 

"Shit," he mutters, his words circling around Zayn's ears and he whimpers, finally, releasing a minutes worth of stinging sensations buzzing in his hip bones and perhaps deeper. 

"Wanna-" 

"Yeah, whatever it is, yeah, m'good." Zayn rushes out along his next low groan, gasping out when Liam retracts, quickly, slipping his wet dick back in Zayn's loosening rim. Stretched muscle he'll be bothered by for hours on end, but he won't think about the soreness or bitterness that comes along with post sex. Not because Liam's such a good shag with the way he moves his meaty hips, fucking Zayn good like he's got nothing better to do. No where better to go. 

"Don't think I'll ever get used to your arse, Zayn, s'like, wicked." Liam exhales, roughly, bending his chest to curve into Zayn's spine. He can feel Liam breathing hotly along his neck and his prickly stubble scratching along Zayn's shoulder, throwing his mouth open while he listens to wet skin slap and echo this office. His utensils alive as they roll and shift to the edges of his desk. He can feel the sweat stick to his forehead like Waliyha's Halloween makeup when he was eleven and Batman 90% of the time. 

Curling his nails into his paper calendar and nudging his chest into the curve of his desk while Liam aims his hips and thrusts lazily, slow and rough every now and then. 

"Love the firm grip you've got on your arse, babe." Liam grunts, slapping his plump balls alove the curve of Zayn's ass. "Mental how good, like-"

"Yeah?" Zayn cuts him off, mumbling almost inaudibly into his elbow. Morphed syllables that curve along his tongue and fly off like just some sex noise. 

"Love when you're on top, mate. S'proper rough, but I love it." Zayn admits, wincing at the way Liam slides in, his cock head twitching and his fingers dig into the small of Zayn's back.

"Never been fucked like-"

" _Zayn_ ," Liam quivers, shaking when he pulls out, almost fully, burying himself back in. 

" _Leeyum_ ," Zayn whines, playfully, inhaling the smell of mixed sweat and cologne. 

"You're so fit, babe, n'd like, keep thinkin' about that first time, y'know?" Liam blubbers on, speeding the way his hips drill. "Got all worked up. Nutted all over me shower walls that morning after-"

"Fucking hell," Zayn bows his head, pressing his cheek into hard wood. It's uncomfortable by every definition, but he fuels his withstandability from the way Liam feels fattened up and glued deep. 

"Didn't compare or anything like that," Liam seems to reassure, cupping either one of Zayn's cheeks with his palms, firmly. Skin slipping along damp skin. 

"Don't think anything will, really. I love fuckin you senseless, just the sounds you make and m'ready to bust, fucking shit." Liam rushes out along a moan and Zayn licks at his dry lips, arching his back and reaching a hand down to tug at his limp dick. 

Liam's drilling his hips, so familiarly and Zayn nods along to his furious, ' _oh yeah_ ,  _m'gonna fucking spill, baby. Yeah, gonna fill your pretty arse up, think you can take all me come?_ ' while he slides his dick in and out, rapidly, with pornographic grunts painting their way into Zayn's head and work space. Finally, his spasming dick halts and Zayn swears he can feel hot produce squirt along the far back of his rectum. 

It's slow and deadly the way Liam lifts himself up, retracting slowly and Zayn's still whimpering, slathering up his dick with pre-cum, still bent over his desk while Liam runs a few fingers up his lower spine, ticklish. 

"Gonna come?" He wonders, quietly, and Zayn nods, barley with his fingers squeezing his dick and he stands, his knees buckling while he turns to Liam. 

He's pumping with one hand while he fumbles with his balls in his opposite, Liam's eyes like jumping flames when he bends low, taking a big gulp of Zayn's cock and that warmth is all he needs, really. 

The remaining build up of his orgasm halted while he shoots, guiltily down Liam's throat, no warning but the flick of his shaft and the tightening of his balls before he's burying his fingers in Liam's hair, pushing him forward and groaning through the few spurts that follow his release. 

Hot skin and substances he couldn't name dripping down his thigh, coating his bare rim and Liam's smirking manically up at him under his own dick. 

"So, good, yeah?" He wonders, "for an office shag, I mean."

"Mental," Zayn hums, contently, rolling his eyes and shoving at Liam's bare chest when he stands, springy hairs that poke under his palm and Zayn bucks his hips, his prick brushing Liam's in the most obvious way and he sighs, relieved for no particular reason but the way Liam's heart beats steady under his touch. 

(And maybe his falls into the same pattern long until he's tucked away into his

 

 

===

 

 

Louis' flat isn't exactly big.

But it's big enough to hold a couple dozen of his closest mates and a banner the side of a bus with 'happy twenty-fourth, dude!' strung up along his high beams.

It's exactly how Zayn remembers it. Narrow, cramped and petite. He hasn't got much furniture, but he has enough. Winding walls and windows large in his center room, lighting up the space with an impeccable view of Battersea across the river through thin glass. Some odd number of floors up with your head in the clouds and Zayn fancies it quite a lot, actually. The plainness of it all. White on white with light grey panes bordering every window. It's homey in one of the most disturbing ways but no one seems to mind with chain lights strung along the upper walls and Mariah Carey Christmas songs replaying themselves to no end.

But Zayn doesn't care, really. It's crowded enough for the music to drown out and Liam to pitch in, his palm guiding the small of Zayn's back as they navigate through small parties of relatives and close mates. A few lads from school Zayn recognizes by voice and a few by daring tattoos.

There's a packed kitchen, too many of Niall's buddies from back home mixed in with his hospital mates, clinking their mugs together in some big circle. And it's sort of traumatizing, the traditional trend, or maybe it isn't, Niall's just a nut. And Zayn bucks his hips back into Liam, sucking in a breath when-

"That _isn't_  Zayn fucking Malik-"

He recognizes the voice and his brain works, churns furiously to match the ring of syllables with a face until he spots wild eyes and hair like a sandy beach and thunder clouds. Jittery fingertips as they clamp tightly around his brown glass bottle and, well-

"Danny, you bastard, get over here, s'Zaynie!" Ant shouts, cackling with his teeth flashing and his opposite arm reaching out to shove a light fist into Zayn's shoulder.

Zayn doesn't push down his cackle, he tugs at his lip when he feels Liam tense behind him, but-

"No way, s' a Christmas miracle, mate!" Danny spins on his heel, surprised and gaping while he slings a slap to Zayn's shoulder.

"Didn't think Louise was actually serious about you comin', bro. S'like, mad weird to see you after what-"

"Four years, yeah?" Ant furrows his brows, shouldering his chin to check Danny's expression.

"Too long," Zayn says, nodding his head, following the way Anthony's eyes trace behind Zayn's shoulders and-

"Who's this lad?"

He doesn't freeze up because he isn't nervous. He swears. It's just difficult, really. The addressing he's not keen on in the first place.

But none of that really matters for too long because Liam's stepping ahead of Zayn, keeping his fingers pressed into his side under dreary shadows and extending his free hand.

"M'Liam." He says, gravely, smiling with crinkles dented into his eyes and Zayn drags his eyes along the scene for a little longer. "Zayn's friend."

It's a feeling he can't pinpoint when the word leaves Liam's lips. It isn't confusion or desperation for maybe another syllable he's missing. It's certainly not anger in any way, shape or form, it's just this simmering nothing that makes him feel everything at the same time and he blames it all on the spiked eggnog Felicite hijacked the second she got the 'ok' from Louis.

"Oi, nice to meetcha' Liam. M'Anthony. This is Danny- the brother." Ant swallows, curving his lips up and nodding at Zayn with mischievous eyes.

"Righto, dude. Any mate of Z's is a mate of ours. Tosser's got good taste in people." Danny lifts his brows, dopily, winking at Zayn and, yeah, it's really that obvious isn't it?

There's quiet between them. Not everyone else because the music is still very much alive, dancing along guests lips and winding it's way through everyone's ears.

"So you look pretty hungry f'r each other. Touchy feely, yeah?" Ant bursts suddenly and Zayn- yeah, he expected this.

"I, um-" Liam stammers, red in the cheeks, a proper mess with fidgeting pupils and Zayn presses his fingers into the opposite side of Liam's waist, lightly drawing him in.

"Just don't break his heart, mate! Suck his cock all you want, we've all been there. He's got a proper package though dunne-"

"Prick," Zayn reaches up swatting an arm out and now Liam's red like a tomato in its season with fearful eyes.

"M'sorry, bro, just wanted to warm 'im up s'all." Anthony shrugs, throwing in a wink while Danny lifts his chin, drifting further away. Thankfully.

"Oi, alright. Guess I'll catch you boys later? Tomlinson sure does know how to throw a bash." Anthony sniffles, gulping down a sip of fizzy beer. "Jus' don't have too much fun, babes."

And he's gone. Sinking into a huddle of city mates Zayn knows by face, but not name and he's sighing into Liam's shoulder, hot in the cheeks.

"They're like-" Liam begins, stuttering when Zayn squints at Louis, clear view across the room with a milky glass of eggnog and a pointed finger, winky eyes and a tottering sway.

(A wasted dipshit by definition-

-but Zayn won't poke fun at him because it's his birthday and he isn't getting any younger.

"Awful," Zayn finishes, swinging them both to the side out of view, back into some hallway with not enough lights.

"Wouldn't say awful, more like-"

"Proper pillocks, babe." Zayn nods, like he's breaking the truth and Liam settles into it.

His eyes are bright in this dark light and Zayn steps forward, Liam's back bumping along this narrow corridor wall with the bopping of pop music echoing just a few inches away. His lips are full and Zayn nudges his nose against Liam's, sighing hotly and-

"Erm, fuck-" Liam grunts suddenly and Zayn lifts a brow, backing up a step.

"S'matta?"Zayn wonders, fixing his collar, uncomfortably.

"I've got, uh, it's-" Liam stutters, flattening his lips out and sighing when he begins to dig around in his front left pocket, twisting his fingers deep until he comes up with a small something between his fingertips.

"Thought you'd like- thought you'd be into gifts, right? And I know you're into sketching obviously, it's your job, babe, but like-" He stutters, clueless, flushed cheeks like he's gone and tore his trousers on national television.

And Zayn finds it-

 _Adorably appealing_ , he thinks, lovesick. Absentmindedly squinting his eyes and tucking away a grimace that threatens to show pinched along the cracks of his lips.

He won't make Liam feel awkward here. Here with all of Zayn's friends and not enough of them to go around.

And it's foreign, yeah, the way they fit. Different because Zayn's pretty sure Liam's incomparable from any lad he's ever come to know this well and-

"It's daft, isn't it? M'such a donut, I'll just-"

"Just shut up, Li." Zayn hums, reaching out to pinch Liam's hip. Ducking his own head to blink at the small gift he has wrapped in his hands. Pocket sized.

The packaging is thin and shaped like a frame. It's an easy guess and Zayn doesn't want to open anything when he's got nothing of his own to give.

"S'not daft. It's like, sweet, dude." Zayn says, his voice slow and warped and he settles in, rocking on the balls of his feet and scrunching his nose when Liam sniffles.

"Yeah? Niall rang me, don't know how he got me mobile but he said it was a good idea when I told 'im." Liam lifts his chin along with confident eye contact, "early birthday present or summat?"

Zayn nods, gnawing at the corner of his lip and just eying Liam up and down like he's hungry because truthfully, Zayn loves him in this light.

The shimmering, reflective Christmas lights that glow just right around the hall entrance. The flickering lamps around Louis' apartment that come together in this orchestra of stars.

And Liam's wrapped up in some hand stitched Christmas sweater with nervous eyes like gingerbread and cinnamon, cherry blossom cheeks and a dipping tongue.

So Zayn doesn't think, really. Not like he ever does when he's around Liam. But he doesn't exactly hesitate when he presses his toes into the solid flooring, nudging his hips forward and slotting his lips, messily against Liam's.

He couldn't give a shit less if everyone's watching. He's got the taste of rich eggnog and sour candy on his tongue and life is bloody fucking good with Liam biting at his lip. Kissing back, not reluctantly, but blissfully.

(Zayn decides he'll save that word for every thought he can stick Liam into, and maybe memories, too.)

But It's even better when he tugs away, sliding his tongue along his teeth and sucking in a whisp of air, silently.

Liam's confused, furrowed eyebrows and darting gazes but Zayn just sniffles. "Any ideas on how m'supposed to getcha' back?"

Liam seems to taste the question on his tongue before he leans close, bumping his nose to Zayn's, clicking his teeth like-

"Don't expect ya' to suck me off in the middle of your best mates Birthday party, but maybe-"

"Later?" Zayn offers, flirtatiously, chewing at the inside of his cheek and puffing them out when Liam shoves a giggle into Zayn's shoulder.

"Later." Liam repeats, nuzzling his nose into the side of Zayn's neck.

"Blow job for a paint kit," Liam whispers along Zayn's skin, "sounds pretty fair."

Zayn snorts, blinking his lashes along the shell of Liam's ear. "More like rip off."

Liam lifts his chin, squinting his eyes defensively.

"Not when you've got a sick boyfriend like meself to compliment your beautiful work." He says, words like knives that cut along Zayn's skin and the slice is so- indescribable.

That word that makes Zayn cringe in any other world but-

He likes it, oddly enough, the way the syllables roll off of Liam's tongue here in a world that's entirely  _theirs_.

With hazy nights, kisses like Sunday mornings and shitty Merlot neither of them prefer to drink more than twice a week.

Except for when Zayn's nailed a cover (which seems to be more often with Liam around, oddly enough) and celebration is key according to Liam who seems to be hanging around more and more and Zayn thinks he knows why, all too suddenly, now.

Boyfriend.

And he decides, rather abruptly, he loves the  _term_  when Liam's the  _definition_.

 

 

===

 

 

"Reckon we could grow old like this?" Liam wonders, sometime after Zayn's bedside alarm clock dings 12:00 am. Zayn's thigh between Liam's legs while he nudges at his dick lightly and giggles at the 's'past Santa's shift, don't worry, babe,' Liam keeps muttering his way every time he bucks to the left, sticky with excess come and produce Zayn wants to wash away with a warm shower. His bones would thank him, that's for sure. Aching legs from the walk back from Louis' apartment, and a shortcut through Hyde because Liam begged for a night sky without city lights and Zayn just wanted to snog him under the flickering stars. 

He shifts, nuzzling his nose into Liam's neck and resting his temple along a thick bicep. He's too warm here, too blissed out in dap sheets he won't care to change until Liam nags him or Caroline gasps in horror the following morning when she huddles over with Caroline and a trashbag full of impeccably wrapped gifts for their traditional swap. 

"Not gunna get old, mate." Zayn swears into Liam's shoulder, nudging his chin into his skin. "Seems so boring."

"Yeah?" Liam wonders, quietly.

"Yeah," Zayn repeats, "you just like, wake up in the morning and have to figure out what t' do in between meals."

"Does seem bland," Liam agrees, nestling his arm and Zayn sits up slightly. 

"I've got a sick plan, though." He says, scrunching his shoulders. "M'gonna get an old jaguar, right? Or like, a ferrari or summat."

"Course," Liam nods, nodding along and scratching up his jaw in amber darkness. 

"Then m'gonna spliff out, right? Get proper out of it and drive me'self off of the London Bridge going like, 150." Zayn chews along his cheek smirking. "Premeditated way out, y'know?"

Liam stays quiet, swallowing air every now and then until-

"Okay, but here's what's really going to happen if m'being honest." 

"Shoot," Zayn says, sinking into the mattress. 

"You'll be 70 years old, you'll think you're going 150, but you'll actually be going 20. You'll en dup bumping the divider, piss yourself and end up losing your dignity and license in one quick swoop." He whispers, comically and Zayn muffles a giggle into his shoulder. 

"Then you'll be ushered off into some rest home where you have to wake up in the mornings and decide what to do between meals." Liam adds and Zayn knocks his bare shoulder to Liam's. 

"Asshole," he mutters, humorously. 

"Don't worry, I'll be there with you." Liam says quickly before Zayn can simmer into a playful punch. 

He turns his head, just barely able to make out Liam's shadowed silhouette. His lips plump under window moonlight. 

"Promise ya'."

 

 

===

 

 

"Keep it up, Tommo and I won't hesitate to call my landlord."

Caroline's scolding is prominent, yes, even on Christmas. Or just as long as Louis is still as troublesome as a five year old and Harry's as useless at continuing him as some soccer mom in her mid twenties. Nothing but scoffing from one end of the room with cackling in the other and bright, shiny ribbons hung inbetween. A dazzling tree in the corner of the living room. Stood up right beside the couch and a giggling Brooklyn who smiles down, toothlessly at her pile of gifts.

The morning is still young and tiresome, but Zayn feels snug enough tucked under Liam's arm while they cram into the corner of Tony's favorite leather couch. The one he would be sitting in if he wasn't off on urgent business and as heartbreaking as that is to think about, Caroline seems just as content with her daughter, obliviously, rolling around in wrapping and running her toy cars and trains into the coffee table legs.

"Ease up, would'ya, C? S'Christmas f'r Christ sakes," Louis argues, crossing his arms over his chest while Harry cackles silently into his elbow.

"Yet you still terrorize my child," she shakes her head, disbelieving.

"Oh, please. Brookstone loves her uncle, doesn't she?" Louis shoves out of Harry's grip, bending his knees and smiling into Brooklyn's eyes.

She nods, cluelessly and Caroline rolls her eyes.

"She might think you're asking to spoil her with more biscuits." Harry offers and Louis snaps his neck around.

"No,  _Styles_. She  _loves_  me. A definition you seemingly have no interest in discovering and perhaps even putting to proper use." Louis clenches his jaw and Harry buries his face away into a pillow, hiding behind his hair and Zayn huffs lightly, shoving his grin away into Liam's arm.

"You two are unbelievable." Carolinesighs, drumming her fingers against the floor and collecting as much wrapping paper as she can without disturbing Caroline's matted rug of ripped shreds.

And Zayn grins at it all because he couldn't exactly be more satisfied.

(Not while he watches his family banter back and forth like squawking seagulls over London harbor and hissing swans in Hyde park. Only he's got a special place reserved for this version of relativity. Him and his city home. The one he feels like he belongs-

-and Liam just adds into it all, rather sweetly.)

"Speaking of unbelievable. C'n ya believe Nialler skipped out on us this year?" Louis announces, slipping his mobile back into his pocket.

"Don't blame him," Caroline mutters and Zayn's glad Louis is too busy flicking Harry's temple to notice.

"That asshole got himself a g-"

"Language," Caroline scolds from the floor, lifting a finger and Louis swallows down his follow-up insult Zayn knows he's had coming.

"Didn't know he was that serious," Harry mutters, pouting up at Louis afterwards who's sat firmly on the edge of the chair, keeping his distance  for no fucking reason, but.

"Keep up, Curly." Louis teases, flicking the fringe from his eyes and shaking his head down at Harry.

Zayn focuses out, humorously, sucking himself into the way Liam's thumbing out small patterns into the dip of his spine. The shallow spot at the small of his back, the curve right above his arse and he tilts his head the opposite way when Liam smirks into his collar bone.

"Quit it," he whispers, half-giddy,

"I wanna play with me gifts, too." Liam hums, like the seductive fucker he is and-

"Disgusting, you two." Louis hollers suddenly and Zayn's eyes flicker up, squinting.

"You're the one to talk, Tomlinson." Caroline fiddles with the necklace around her neck. The one Tony's sent her from across seas.  Charms with shimmering, translucent rocks. Magenta and sea foam.

Louis stays quiet, slapping his palm lightly into Harry's chest when he laughs. Louis whispering a sharp 'watch it or m'not blowing you f'r a week' that Caroline doesn't miss and has her waving her arms and pointing at Brooklyn from behind.

She's careless, swaying her head around while she gawks up at Zayn and Liam. Fiddling her small fingers along the cuffs of Zayn's jeans, untying Liam's shoe laces and re-tying them because she's just learned how to do so and Zayn sighs down through fuzzy vision while Liam presses his chin into Zayn's shoulder.

"Brutal," he mutters along the shell of Zayn's ear and he hums back, tracing his thumb over Liam's belly, springy hairs that peak out past his tight fitting henley and loose pair of sweats.

"S'only gonna get worse," Zayn mumbles up at him through webbed lashes, thick like spider legs, "sure you don't have a better place t' be or summat?"

Liam lifts a brow, adjusting his back and taking in the cluster of people before him. Words like chilling ice as they break at his teeth.

"Don't think I'll ever have a better place to be."

 

 

===

 

His flat is lit up like New Years and he thinks, silently when he steps through the door that he's gone back in time to New Year's Eve with sparks in between his lips and his plastic cup of cheap, drugstore bought champagne and a tug of Liam's fingers along his wrists when everyone in his office began chanting. Some half-buzzed snog in the janitor's closet just outside the lifts and he wishes he could remember the chalky click of Liam's teeth against his when he grabbed at his dick. Some reflex like defense only  _so_  much better and now that he thinks back, he doesn't remember leaving the closet.

(The only memory something like pure ecstasy while he rode Liam into his mattress until he couldn't hear the fireworks down by the Eye of London anymore. Cracking and cheering fading out into nothing but pitched whines and sweaty palms.)

Only now everything's still and there's a cinnamon scent that whisks it's way along Zayn's senses. Carrying him away and lightening his step.

He leans himself along the corner, smirking at a huddled over shadow with concentrating eyes as his fingers fumble with an automatic lighter, flicking the candle wick and cursing under his breath lightly when the thin material refuses to light up.

Liam, strapped up in some long red turtle neck, hair quiffed up into a perfect wave with skin like lily ponds and jeans tight along his thighs. Reaching his opposite palm up to cup the candle and Zayn leans back on his heel, creaking the floorboard beneath him and Liam's chin tilts his way, eyes darting over his frame.

"Busted," he huffs, smirking when he straightens his spine out. Standing by the side of a room glowing with candles.

"Setting up f'r me birthday massage?" He wonders from the hallway, scratching up along his jaw and smoothing a smile out along his lips.

Liam shrugs, hardly, "thought films and me would do."

"Here I was waiting for a new tube card," Zayn snorts, faking out every bit of obnoxious tint that accompanies his tone.

Liam crinkles his eyes, bowing his head and stepping forward, letting his fingers curl up Zayn's waist, tugging him closer so his eyes are direct and Zayn doesn't squirm anymore because it's all so bloody-

Natural.

The way this fits. The way  _they_  fit.

"Valentine's day, yeah?" Liam whispers, gushingly along the curve of Zayn's jaw.

"And a bucket full of Charleston's' for Halloween?" Zayn asks, teasing when Liam presses a soft kiss below his ear.

"Don't forget next Christmas. I'll buy you a house," Liam seems to promise, edging closer with his other hand steadying Zayn's hips. "Or us. All f'r my birthday boy."

And it doesn't sound daft or weird. The way Liam says it. Like 'here's to the future and a little bit more' they're both falling into blindly.

"And loads of pups," Zayn teases along, pressing his palm firmly along Liam's chest and curling his fingers, attempting to shove him away when he lifts his lip into a small simper.

But he doesn't budge. Standing firmly with his boots planted to the ground.

"Loads. In some not-shitty place in Wembley?" Liam offers, lifting his cheeks and pressing his forehead to Zayn's.

"With not so shitty friends." Zayn mumbles, playing into it all.

"And us." Liam responds simply, like those words are all it takes, but Zayn's sugaring them across his lips quietly, without a choice, repetitive like-

" _Us._ "

 

 

===

 

"M'absolutley living for the keurig, bro." Louis crosses his heart, shuffling behind Zayn when he flicks their office light off. 

The sky is dimming and the sun is beginning to wave goodbye under this enormous blanket of lumpy clouds, grey and thick and threatening rain even though the forecast on his mobile swears otherwise. Zayn still preys his tube ride home won't be as unexpectedly wet. Beats tucked under his jacket like usual only avoiding deep puddles and any sort of torrential downpour ahead. There's a steady draft from down the hall and Zayn rubs at his bare elbows, tugging at his long sleeves and pulling them down to cover his wrists, eyes catching on inked in designs along his hands. 

"Think Harry adores it more, though." Louis quirks his lip, "tea fanatic n'd all that. Claims s'good f'r your exercise endurance or summat."

Zayn gnaws along the inside of his cheek, cursing the awful habit but humorously squinting at it all. 

"M'glad," he says, shoving his keys into his front pocket. "Mostly Liam-"

Louis' eyes pinch slightly, his jaw frozen in place and Zayn lets the rest of his words die on his tongue. 

"You two are serious like, yeah?" Louis wonders, completley off topic, but Zayn blames himself for dropping his name. 

He doesn't answer, mostly because he doesn't know how. He figures it's all going quite well, not horrendous like Louis' daily complaints about pas girlfriends or boyfriends. It's new- not rushed and overly emphasized. Yet he figures it's all a matter of time before all the good comes crashing down. 

(But he keeps that feeling locked up deep inside his chest.)

"Don't have to answer, know it's weird, like," Louis mutters, folding his hands behind his back and knocking his head lightly to the wall. "Couldn't answer it me'self, but-"

Louis' words freeze and he seems to think before he speaks again. 

"He seems like a right lad. Properly kind, genuine, right? And you're me best mate, Zayn, so m'not soft for caring. Don't think that, fucker." Louis lifts his chin, this 'all high and mighty' expression he wears proudly for sentimental conversations like these. 

The ones Zayn never expects in the middle of their building hallway while the lights begin to dim out above their heads. 

"Definitely not, of course," Zayn says, humorously, ignoring the soft punch Louis lands to his shoulder. 

"M'serious, tosser," he mumbles, tucking his grin away into his hoodie. 

"But I just want ya to know what's good for you." Louis continues, dropping the jokes along with his goofy smile.

 "And he's one of those things, Maliko."

 

 

===

 

 

Zayn gets the phone call around his trip down the elevator shaft (after Louis shoved him into the wall and threatened his life for joking about telling Niall he's got a heart) and the short walk to the tube station. The call with Liam on the other end, sniffling into the receiver and mumbling so low and soft Zayn stays on with him the whole way back to his flat, unlocking the door with Liam's spare key under the mat and shuffling past the thick wood. 

Quitting on his second call when he finds Liam with his eyes squeezed shut tucked away in his bed while his bedside lamp flickers out slowly beside him. 

And Zayn doesn't neglect the instinct he has to be there. climbing into bed with him and tucking an arm under Liam's side to press him close. Mutters like, 'He's gone, Zayn, like-' that his heart aches over. The helpless, soft please that come from Liam like, 'and you'll come, yeah?' until he's completley silent and circling his thumb into Zayn's palm. And soon enough all of the sound between them simmers into oblivion.

 But Zayn doesn't let go until the sun sinks in the sky and they fall asleep under a heavy weight of loss. 

 

 

===

 

 

 

"And you are attending, yes?"

Caroline's voice isn't exactly sugary sweet with pinched in sass the following morning. Her lips are bright, matching her studded earrings. Curled hair that falls softly on her shoulders and lips pursed into a thin line like this is some interrogation and maybe it is. The way her fingernails trail across the table and her expression reads doubtful but hopeful while Zayn mopes at his lap across from her in the empty break room. She's blowing softly along the rim of her hot tea. Steamy shadows that distract Zayn's line of vision and he shivers, barley. 

It's cold, frigid, like when you're waiting for that first burst of hot air to shoot up from your heater system during early February mornings. His feet pressed into the tile while he twiddles his thumbs and mutters out a slow "of course," that Caroline doesn't take too easily. 

" _Zayn_ ," she warns, narrowing her eyes and he feels fifteen and being scolded by his own mum for not keeping good grades up in school or something else low in valuables. 

"M'planning on it," he adds, trying his best to sound convincing and promising but his words come out the opposite and Caroline breathes in steadily. 

"You care about him, don't you?" 

Well-  _yes_ , fuck, if he doesn't care. 

"Yeah," he says, lowly.

Caroline purses her lips, leaning back with crossed arms. She looks unconvinced, unimpressed and sympathetically warning? Like she feels every bit for him that she can and he's caught between feeling comforted or irritated. 

"And you care to stick around him for a while?" She wonders, the opposite of the follow up question Zayn had prepared and ready in his head to shoot out. 

So he stays quiet, biting along the inside of his cheek and tucking the soon to come guilt into his back pocket. 

"Well?" She presses him and Zayn swallows, silently. 

"All relationships are is caring for another person and I don't know what that idiot Tomlinson put into your head, but it's quite simple, Malik." She huffs, lightly. 

Zayn wraps his index around a loose string in his t-shirt, moping aimlessly and he jumps slightly when Caroline knocks her elbow into the table. "Alright then."

"You'll do what you need to. I'm not here to stop you, I'm just here to see you happy." She says, softly and Zayn can't say he expected calm and collected instead of belligerent cursing and swears made to the gods he may or may not believe in. 

"And that boy," she chews along a hazy smile, curving her thumb up the side of her still steaming cuppa.

"He's  _damn_  good for you."

 

 

===

 

His calendar reads January 23 and he knows very well the plan, he just doesn't fall through. Forgetting the promises he whispered aimlessly the few days before between warm sheets and Liam's legs.

He doesn't go. End of story.

And he slowly accepts Liam's not going to call or bother by the 25th because Zayn knows just as well as he did the day this all began (his promises are indefinite and) he's incapable of care beyond his own. He's positive.

His selfish mindset has just swallowed him up.

And worry is merely a raindrop in this puddle of disappointment dripping from his fingertips. 

 

 

===

 

 

"This is officially the worst year of our lives." Louis groans, ejecting his words into action and knocking his head back against Zayn's wall. Nearly denting and he glares up, earning a quirk of Louis' lips like, 'm'sorry, Zayn, but I fucked up' and he doesn't scold him like Caroline would if this were anywhere else. He doesn't flip him off or throw a punch to his shoulder because he's got nothing left but 'what if's' stuck to his tongue while the sun sets, waving goodbye one last time. 

And he knew he would end up like this. Maybe that's the problem, maybe it isn't but he can surely tell he's destined for just  _this_.

Just this endless repetitive cycle of Louis and Niall and scribbling a pointless mess on cardboard every now and then and slapping a book cover label across the front. And it all does him well, honestly. He's just convinced the world's got more for him than a couple of city lads and a heart prone to breaking every good once and awhile. Like he hasn't got the key he's looking for to slip him into his own enclosed room of wet kisses and illogical decisions that turn out well in the end because they  _always_  do with love.

(Or they're supposed to.)

And he  _gets_  that now, really, he's got it imprinted into his head like mental mercury.

But along with all of the time he doesn't have, he doesn't exactly have the right words lined up on his tongue to say. Or the precisely perfect vocabulary to describe how devastatingly torn up he is about it all.

A boy he took a chance with because life's too plain, and that's just as obvious now while he's flung back to the beginning, with his head propped up on his pillow. Louis slurping obnoxiously on his favorite one of Zayn's mugs while Niall quirks his lip, texting Jenny or Maddie or whoever he's hiding from the both (which Zayn doesn't frown at because that's  _bloody brilliant_ ) between Zayn's pathetic mumbling.

" _His_  life." Niall interjects, looking up with an apologetic shrug.

"Fuck right off, Horan. This is a mourning party for our friend. And when it's Zayn, it's all of us." Louis jerks his head up, glaring at Niall who raises his hands, huffing in a terrified breath because Louis is in one of _those_  moods you just can't put a name to.

Zayn's the same way, only he won't take it out on anyone but himself while the guilt eats away at his lungs a lot like poisonous nicotine Liam talked him out of back when-

He swallows hard, moping at his hands in his lap. He's not going to slice himself down like this. Here. In this city suspended flat with the same flickering lights and the same joggers sticking to his thighs every other day he feels like he isn't good enough for the world.

"So he gave you the-"

"No." Zayn shakes his head. Shredding the stupid fucking vision that comes along with the word 'so.'

"Fuck, m'sorry bro." Niall shakes his head, pouting at the floor.

He won't say it's fine like every other let down in his life because he'll be okay all too soon. Without him.

"How long has it been?" Louis wonders even though he's got the answer somewhere because Zayn ended up smoking away the day on the roof of his apartment while Liam's life was being buried into the ground, twelve feet under. Spending the rest of his week scrolling through the same pictures on the same account with the same duddy captions he frowns at now because they're all part of a bigger good. 

"5 days." Zayn answers simply, compressing backwards.

"You're-" Louis cuts off, desperately looking for words to spit out, "like,  _properly_   _miserable_ , Zayn. You haven't bothered with even clocking in anymore n'd Caroline's getting like-" Louis pauses to take a breath, "she's not even bitching me out anymore, n'd that's  _so_  fucked, dude."

He stays quiet, like he has been, hanging on with the hope that he'll recover, like the strong independent man he's become with the advice of a proud Yasser and a kiss on the cheek from his mum, thousands of miles away who promises, though his dreams, ' _everything's going to turn out just fittingly, sunshine._ '

He's caught in between this feeling of sinking sadness and melancholy roots that spike his blood, and this simmer of laziness like he's done all he can do. Which is-

Nothing, dumbass, he thinks, dopily. Sighing lightly into his shoulder.

He isn't lazy or inattentive. Pushing months of his life out of his head because that's a  _Louis move_  and Zayn's got too much of ' _you're my jaan, Z_ ' filtering through his head with a '-love Li xx' attached to the end that wedges a blade through his heart.

He isn't heartbroken, though. Not again. He won't admit it.

And it's quieter than a pin drop. An orchestra of silence that booms swiftly through his apartment. Louis scratchy voice curling along his ear with words Zayn swears sounds like-

"Ya' should call 'im."

His eyes lift from his fingertips, drooping and he won't bother with the purple underlining that he knows is there. Not that he hasn't got enough sleep, he just prefers drowning every memory out with blasting headphones and tunes he can't forget.

"No point," he shrugs, leaning back, "m'no good for him. Never was."

Louis snorts, rolling his eyes, "fuckin bollocks, Malik. I've seen his eyes light up all proper when he sees you."

Niall's shifting from his corner in the room and Zayn catches him nodding along out of the corner of his eye.

"Yeah, his gran passed. You fucked up, but you two are the biggest fuckin' nerds 've ever seen together." Louis swears, his words sound bitter. It's only because he's trying a new way of support. Nothing like a night out because they all know very well what happened last time. Plus Zayn knows Louis knows this is much more real than long blonde hair, eyes like fairy dust and an engagement ring he'll never see again.

(Not like he wants to because that chapters far gone, but-)

"Grandfather," Zayn corrects, groggily.

Louis groans, throwing his hands up, "whatever, bro. Same thin-"

"Think he's right, Zayno. Ye've got t' try, bro." Niall interrupts, thankfully from Zayn's side, his peppy words drowning out his plastic sympathy. "All good things require a good shot every now n'd then."

"Exacto." Louis crosses his arms, raising a brow. "So where is he?"

Zayn's chest vibrates, some emotion he doesn't want to feel creeping it's way along his insides and tugging at his heart just a little rougher. Hammering away at his ribs and fighting a war behind his eye sockets because he's seeing blurry and he blinks down before Louis can catch him or Niall can lift a brow.

But he thinks, even though he doesn't want to, but-

"He's got this author club, erm, downtown, but-"

"But?" Louis wonders, flickering his eyes over to Niall like it's so odd for Zayn to want to sink into his bed and suffocate out of this day.

And that isn't, right? No.

"You're going, let's go," Louis nods, rocking back on his heels with his hand shoved into his baggy sweats. Expectant like Zayn's going to jump at the offer and he stays still, sulking.

"You do love him, don't you?" Niall asks, timidly and Zayn-

His heartbeat rises, blurry vision greatening and that stings his cheeks, but he won't lifts his head because he knows deep down how much he needs this.

So his 'yes' is the flip of his sheets and the effort he puts into turning up his trainers because he won't be that sod who forgets the taste of joy.

Not anymore.

 

 

===

 

 

The brewery is just like he remembers it and he questions the address lightly when he pushes through the front doors, hand stuffed into his parka, shivering off all of his doubt and nodding at the young barista wiping down the tables set in the sitting area. She has thin lined lips with magenta shade and Zayn swears he recognizes her from a day not so long ago with curious brown eyes and nervous giggles between him and a stranger. 

There's a squeak to his walk and he drags the soul of his feet along a rugby carpet, one soft and welcoming. His mobile shines 8:34, exact time with blinking digits. Eyes watering from sudden wash of heat and he stands still, observing the stunning silence. 

He hopes he hasn't mucked up the address. The one Liam scribbled out to him sometime after he pulled out from between Zayn legs and the hot rinse afterwards. The note Louis cackled at while shoving him all the way from the tube station to the front door of a shop he's been to for all of the right reasons. 

"Can I help you?" 

His head turns, too quickly and he winces at the jolt of minor pain. Cursing away Louis' voice in his head swearing ' _if you would join me and Haz for yoga more..._ ' and thumbing along the frays in his pockets. The girl is young, not the same barista wiping down tables and humming some late Christmas tune. This bird has thicker hips, eyes like tide pools and lips free of color, acrylic nails that remind Zayn of Caroline and he stutters into his words. 

"Uh, lookin' f'r-"

"The book club?" She offers, raising a brow and he nods. 

"Should've known. You've got that writer look." She hums, pursing her lips and pointing to an open door down to the left of the counter. through there, love."

He nods, muttering a quiet thank you and cutting through the tables, slowly, following the sudden hush of voices he picks up rather oddly. Crinkling his nose at the smell of ginger from the storage room he passes. This back meeting room he doesn't expect, but it's there and he pops his head in, sucking in a deep much needed breath when-

Well, shit. 

The room's packed. A crowd in the middle while the significant others line up along either of the side walls, some lingering listeners in the back who look jittery and Zayn eyes the crowd, slowly until-

"Is that it, then?" 

His head turns, eyes pondering up the front of the room where he sees, well, Liam. His hands perched to either side of the wooden podium he has stuck in front of him. Observing oak eyes that search the room for whatever reason and Zayn's heart thumps a little harder in his chest. 

He swallows hard, panicking in one of the most contained ways and he steps closer, observing the way Liam's eyes look tired, worn and just purely through. 

And he doesn't think entirely because there isn't exactly a plan to this. Just this sort of hope and a few encouraging words from Louis and Niall as they dropped him at the door, swearing to every instance that ' _big will do it, dude. Make 'im remember yah_ '

"No, I've got erm-" Zayn cuts off, his voice weak when eyes turn on him, Liam's burning, widening and he chokes into his words. "I've got something I'd like to share."

"This isn't really a-" 

"Please," Zayn says, quietly begging because he's here and he hasn't got a clue on what to say, but Liam's staring at him and he's scratching his thumb along the material inside of his parka pockets, chewing at his tongue. 

And he just sort of-

"And then the other lad asked to buy him a drink, and so he asked that guy,"What happens if I enjoy the drink?" "What happens then?" He says, quoting a memory, rocking on his heels to keep from fucking fainting, continuing into his next sentence like, " And the asshole pretended not to know the answer. So he told him."

Liam's eyes are pinched slightly, observantly confused as can be like, 'what the hell do you think you're doing?'

Zayn ignores it all and reaches back into his memory, blindly. "He asked if they would play beer pong in that shitty pub with his mates until they headed back to his place in Wembley. And he asked if they'd have to listen to his roommate shag Addison or Jessie, or whatever her name was till they fell asleep."

There's overwhelming pressure beginning to crush him, this pounding scream in his head and he pushes through it, regrettably, hoping he doesn't look like some daft lad just out of the pub down the street, wasted with a story to tell. 

Yet at the same time, he's got willingness in his blood and that's properly righteous for an outing of this sorts. 

So he keeps going. 

"And he asked him if a year later, they'd still be there in that bar. The only difference being that now  
he feels pressure to get married and have kids, because he thinks that that's what he wants." Zayn says, shrugging with an open heart and probably a lot more balanced on his line. "And then in the summers, they would drive up to shitty Stamford."

"To meet his  _shitty_  parents."

His blood runs cold, eyes still locked with Liam's. Completely surrounded with dozens of people, but they all blur around him and this is how it  _should_  be. 

He wets his lips, hopeful. "Wondering the entire ride if they'd think that he was fit or handsome enough."

"Smart." Liam adds in, right on cue. His glossy eyes reflecting off of the dim back room lights that catch off of a spinning fan or two. 

"Wondering the entire ride if they'd think he's smart enough." Zayn says, his accent curling around his words, suffocating the syllables. 

"Because no one was." Liam almost shrugs, gripping the sides of the wooden podium, magenta knuckles and ghost white nails. 

"And no one ever will be," Zayn finishes, swallowing every plea he wants to spit Liam's way and they scrape back down his throat, stinging like acid or laundry detergent and he holds a breath down in his lungs. 

"And I-" Zayn stutters, cursing at himself mentally, "he knows that now, right? And he would give anything to go back to that moment. The moment where they first met. Before anything went wrong." 

Liam's silent, his lip is trembling, Zayn swears from his spot twenty feet away. Quirking his lip because he won't crack here. 

"Before he didn't show up for him when he needed him most. Before he understood that being there for somebody when it's most difficult is really all that relationships are." Zayn copies Caroline's streak of brilliance. The one he forgot until now when his armor is cracking open and Liam's eyes are burning bright like a supernova, blinding him. 

"And he wasn't afraid, because he thought he wasn't the one." Zayn pauses, his voice weak and shaky and he hates how his words are tearing at his skin, but he's too deep now. 

"He was absolutely terrified, because he knew he _was_. And if he could give him just one more chance," Zayn cuts off, tucking his bottom under his top lip and blinking down at his shoes before connecting his gaze again. 

"He knew where to find him."

 

 

===

 

 

It's 2:34 in the morning, dead center, bitter fucking February-

 _and I'm bloody freezing_ , Zayn thinks, digging his fingers deep into the velvet linings of his oversized parka. Wisping in small inhales with a fragile fear of freezing his throat and exposing his lungs to incredible temperatures. The sky is an amber blanket while stars blink like headlights on a busy highway. Trees bare and thin, but terrifying all the same as they creak and away around him. Too much wind to call off Winter and a dead night setting that has Zayn in a middle trance. Some magnificently beautiful scene above his head with not so beautiful castings and Zayn thinks rather lowly of himself during this moment.

This moment where he's just not sure he's done the most he can do for himself or Liam either. He's become this forlorn figure that blends into the murky trees and Seasonal wind of a dense city he's become too familiar with.

He's got these memories wedged into his skull and he doesn't think shampoo will do it. Not a good scrub from Rizzi or Lemon citrus. He's perfectly situated on a bench he finds too familiar. Pocketing his mobile over an hour ago because his battery has run dead and there's no point in counting the seconds when he can trace the stars above his head and hope.

Pathetically sit here and hope that maybe-

It's then, the split second between his racing heart at footsteps or the indescribable feeling that cleanses his blood, washes him free of panic or delusion or just pure self hatred. The slow drag of timberland boots along concrete that stop about a foot from him. Liam's pupils dragging up Zayn's body and clinging to his lips. He's wrapped up in his jacket, scarf tucked tight around his neck while he palms at his pockets, his voice low and timid and cower like, only his syllable comes out smoothly along his tongue. 

"So."

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Partial credit to That Awkward Moment for the brilliant plot line and a massive thanks to some extraordinary people for listening to me whine about this story for the past month and a half. 
> 
> As always, comments, kudos and just reads in general are greatly appreciated.
> 
> I'm also on Tumblr 24/7. [My blog.](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ch3stpaynes)


End file.
